(TH)
PwC, JM Financial and ICICI Securities are among the five consultants vying to become transaction adviser to the government’s over Rs. 33,000 crore stake sale in Hindustan Petroleum Corp Ltd HPCL to ONGC. EY and Rothschild (India) Pvt Ltd are the other two who have submitted expression of interest (EoI) to the Department of Investment and Public Asset Management’s (DIPAM) invitation to professional consulting firms and investment/merchant bankers for managing the disinvestment process, official sources said.
DIPAM is looking to appoint one adviser for the strategic sale as also a law firm with experience and expertise in mergers and acquisitions or takeovers or strategic disinvestment. Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas, Crawford Bayley & Co, Luthra & Luthra, Suman Khaitan & Company and Hammurabi & Solomon Partners are in race for legal consultant. Sources said DIPAM has invited the bidders to make a presentation on Friday after which it will open price bids.
The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) had on July 19 given ‘in-principle’ approval for strategic sale of the government’s existing 51.11 per cent stake in HPCL to Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) along with the transfer of management control. At the current market price, the HPCL stake is valued at more than Rs. 33,300 crore.
The merchant banker would assist the government on “modalities of disinvestment and the timing” as well as recommend the need for intermediaries required for the process, according to the notice inviting bids. It would do business valuation of HPCL, structure the transaction, suggest measures to fetch optimum value and assess positioning of the strategic sale.
