Finmin scouting for merchant bankers for RITES, RVNL listing

The Finance Ministry is scouting for merchant bankers to manage the initial public offer (IPO) of two rail engineering firms RITES and RVNL.

They are among the 5 railway PSUs cleared for listing by the Union Cabinet last week in which the government holds 100 per cent stake. IRCON, Indian Railway Finance Corp (IRFC) and Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation Ltd (IRCTC) are the other three firms on the list. For these, as many as nine erchant bankers, including HSBC Securities, Axis Capital and ICICI Securities, will make presentations before the DIPAM officials next week. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had announced in the Union Budget on February 1 the government's plan to list rail PSUs. RITES, which is in the business of engineering consultancy and project management, had a post tax profit of Rs 339 crore in 2015-16. Its net worth stood at Rs 1,803 crore. RVNL, which builds infrastructure for high speed rail, had a profit of Rs 287.59 last fiscal and its net worth was Rs 2,827.83 crore. The Department of Investment and Public Asset Management (DIPAM) has sought proposals from merchant bankers for managing their IPOs by May 11.

The government would appoint up to five merchant bankers for managing the IPO of Rail Vikas Nigam Ltd (RVNL) and four for RITES Ltd. "The percentage of paidup equity to be divested will be determined based on the post-issue capital of the company," DIPAM said in the RFP for appointing merchant bankers. A part of the public offering will be reserved for employees of the respective companies. The eligible employees and retail investors will be offered shares at a discount on the issue price, it added. In the Union Budget 2017-18, the government set a target of Rs 46,500 crore to be mobilised through minority stake sale and Rs 15,000 crore from strategic disinvestment.