Sidhartha Shukla

moneycontrol.com



The government will soon be appointing merchant bankers to help it find a buyer for its minority stake in 51 companies which it holds through the Specified Undertaking of UTI (SUUTI) fund.



The government will kick of its divestment plans in three blue chip companies.



SUUTI was formed in 2003 as an extension of the United Trust of India (UTI). It comprises 51 companies -- 8 unlisted and the rest listed companies. Through SUUTI, the government holds minority stake in these companies and is planning to divest its shareholding. The government is mulling to divest through an offer for sale (OFS), block deal, bulk deal or just by a regular sale on stock exchanges.

The fund includes listed companies like HUL, RIL, ICICI Bank, Axis Bank and a host of Tata Group firms.

For the purposes of divestment, SUUTI has segregated the companies into three groups. Group A consists of 3 blue-chip companies -- Axis Bank, L&T and ITC. Group B has 8 unlisted companies, while Group C has the remaining 40 listed companies.



Through SUUTI the government holds 11.53 percent stake in Axis Bank, 11.17 percent in ITC and 8.16 percent in L&T which are placed in Group A and are up for divestment first.





Source: http://www.suuti.in/RFP-25072016.pdf



As per Monday's closing, the government's holding in Axis Bank is worth Rs 14,818 crore, in ITC Rs 33,908 crore and L&T Rs 12,057 crore.





The complete sale of these three blue-chip stocks can fetch the government Rs 60,785 crore based on yesterday's closing price.







Stocks in Group A will be easier to divest because of their high demand in the market. The rest of the companies in Group B and C may comparatively be a hard sell.



The investment bankers -- who will be hired for three years -- will have their job cut out.



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