NEW DELHI: Contrary to the belief that the auction of shares by companies is not meant for retail investors, the final participation details of the ONGC auction on March 1 has thrown up interesting data that indicates active participation by this segment.
In fact, the highest bid for 30 shares came from a single applicant in the price range of Rs 350 – 355 a share.
A senior disinvestment ministry official told Business Standard though the auction was designed for those interested in a large chunk of shares, retail investors participated actively. “Some people certainly wanted to test the waters,” he said.
The number of applicants bidding for a single share was 92 — Rs 290-315 a share. There were 34 applications for two shares (Rs 290-300 a share), 28 for three shares (Rs 290-Rs 310), 21 for four shares (Rs 290-Rs 310) and 106 for five shares (Rs 290-Rs 305 a share).
The data also shows the number of applicants interested in shares in multiples of five was substantially higher than those who sought other numbers of shares.
For 10 shares, there were 300 applications (Rs 290-310), 82 applicants bid for 15 shares (Rs 290-307), 226 applications for 20 shares (Rs 290-310) and 122 for 25 shares (Rs 290-Rs 305).
A total of 322 applicants bid for 50 shares (Rs 290-310) and 438 bid for 100 shares (Rs 290-325).
As expected, the number of applicants for more than 200 shares fell substantially: there were 105 bids for 200 shares (Rs 290- 330 a share), 42 for 500 shares (Rs 290-300) and 17 for 1,000 shares (Rs 290-300).
Among the top bids were one for 14,157,000 shares (Rs 305 a share) and 20 applications for 14,300,000 shares (Rs 305-310).
The largest bid was for 100 million shares by a single applicant (Rs 295 a share). Though information about the bidders has not been disclosed, the official said Life Insurance Corporation had garnered a big chunk in the auction.
According to finance ministry data released earlier, the total bids were worth Rs 16,460 crore, while those for Rs 12,766 crore were accepted. Bids worth Rs 3,693 crore, or a little over a fifth of the entire amount, were rejected.
Almost a third of the bids (1,219 of 3,982) were rejected.
In the auction of 427 million shares, about 420.3 million were sold at an average price of Rs 303.67 a share, against the floor price of Rs 290 a share.
The ONGC scrip traded at about Rs 267 on the Bombay Stock Exchange on Friday.