With foreign investors showing little interest in the Indian Oil Corporation?s (IOC) disinvestment roadshows, oil minister M Veerappa Moily said the disinvestment of the 10% stake should happen in an ?appropriate market?.
?It (disinvestment) will happen at the appropriate time. IOC today is India’s number one company and I don’t want that kind of credibility and stability of IOC to be shaken,? he said.
Moily added he doesn’t want to go to a market where he won?t get the right price. The IOC stock closed at R199.25 on the BSE, 47% below the 52-week peak of R375 reached on January 18.
Investors at roadshows in the US, UK and Singapore are unhappy with the lack of clarity over deregulation of diesel prices and the lingering fuel subsidy issue.
Moily, however, said that a decision on the timing of the disinvestment would be taken by his ministry and the ministry of finance together after due consultation.
The finance ministry is keen on the IOC stake sale to meet the fiscal’s disinvestment target of R40,000 crore. The sale of 19.16 crore IOC shares at the current price would fetch the government less than R3,900 crore.