Govt to offload 4% in Hindustan Copper on Friday

The government will offload its 4 per cent share in Hindustan Copper Ltd on Friday, starting the Rs 30,000 crore (Rs 300 billion) disinvestment programme for the current fiscal.

"HCL disinvestment will happen on Friday between 9:15 am and 3:30 pm. The first tranche is only going to be 4 per cent," Disinvestment Secretary Halim Khan told reporters.

This will be the first stake sale in any PSU in the current financial year during which the government plans to raise Rs 30,000

crore by way of disinvestment.

The government had earlier planned to offload 9.59 per cent out of its 99.59 per cent equity in Hindustan Copper. However, it has now decided to offload the copper major in two tranches.

"We don't want to flood the market with extra liquidity so we are divesting stakes in two tranches," Khan said, adding that the floor price for the issue would be decided after the close of the equity market tomorrow.