Power Grid Corp Board clears FPO plan

Power Grid Corporation of India Ltd. announced that its Board of Directors, at its meeting held on January 25, granted an in-principle approval to the Follow on Public Offering (FPO). The issue will be equivalent to 10% of the paid up equity share capital from domestic / external market for augmenting resources of Company to fund its investment programme. This will be subject to approvals by Government of India and approvals as required for FPO. The issue will happen sometime in September and will be of around Rs35bn. The Government of India currently holds 86.36% stake in the company, while the remaining 13.64% is held by public. The company's Board also considered the investment approval for 'Immediate evacuation System for Nabinagar TPS' (1000 MW) at an estimated cost of Rs2.15bn, with commissioning schedule of within 28 months from the date of investment approval. Last week, NTPC and REC received Board approvals and plan to mobilise around Rs140bn via FPOs. Both these FPOs will hit the market in early next month. The Cabinet had earlier asked all listed profitable PSUs to have public shareholding of at least 10% in each of them. There are 17 listed PSUs which have public holding less than 10%