BEML stake sale: Govt extends deadline for bids till Mar 22

The government on Friday extended the deadline for submitting preliminary bids for buying its 26 per cent stake in BEML till March 22, the Department of Investment and Public Asset Management said in a circular.

In January, the government invited Expression of Interest (EoI) for the strategic disinvestment of 26 per cent stake in BEML Ltd, along with the transfer of management control and had set March 1 as deadline for putting in bids.

The government currently holds 54.03 per cent stake in the company, which is involved in sectors like defence, rail, power, mining and infrastructure.

Shares of BEML closed at Rs 1,079.10 apiece, up 0.84 per cent on BSE. At the current market price, a 26 per cent stake would fetch over Rs 1,000 crore to the government.

The government had in 2016 given an in-principle approval to sell 26 per cent stake in the company along with transfer of management control.

The company's total revenue from operations was Rs 3,028.82 crore in fiscal 2019-20.

SBI Capital Markets has been appointed as the advisor by the Government of India for advising and managing the proposed strategic disinvestment of BEML.

BEML has an order book of Rs 9,795 crore as on March 31, 2020.

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in her 2021-22 Budget speech had said a number of transactions, including Bharat Petroleum Corp Ltd, Air India, Shipping Corp of India, Container Corp of India, IDBI Bank, BEML Ltd, Pawan Hans, Neelachal Ispat Nigam Ltd, would be completed in the coming fiscal.

The government has set an ambitious target of raising Rs 1.75 lakh crore from divestment in the next financial year, higher than Rs 32,000 crore estimated to be raised this fiscal.

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