Pawan Hans disinvestment process moves to last stage after govt received financial bids

The government has received an undisclosed variety of monetary bids for the sale of its stake in the ailing helicopter operator, Pawan Hans taking the disinvestment course to its final stage. As informed by the Secretary of the Department of Investment and Public Asset Management (DIPAM), Tuhin Kanta Pandey, the financial bids for Pawan Hans disinvestment have been received by the transaction advisor and the process now moves to the concluding stage. 

Although, he did not disclose the number of bidders or the source of the financial bids. Notably, the central government is looking forward to selling its entire 51% stake in Pawan Hans while the state-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) holding the rest of 49% has also offered its entire shareholding for sale after the company started facing reported loss. 

The Centre had proposed to sell its stake in 2018 but later the process was withdrawn after ONGC also decided to sell its 49% stake in the company along with the government. After failing to receive investor response for the bidding, the government had also loosened the terms reducing the minimum net worth for the potential bidders and also the lock-in period of investment which would allow the successful bidder to sell assets after a period of one year. 

Centre's disinvestment target for FY-2022

With the government's ambitious disinvestment target of Rs 1.75 trillion for the 2022 financial year, it has till now only Rs 9,330 crore from minority stake sales. Earlier in October, the government also sold Air India to Tata Group at an enterprise value of Rs 18,000 crore which also marks the first major privatization step in the last two decades. Thereafter, the government will receive Rs 2,700 crore from Tata for the sale of its 100% stake with Air India. 

Similarly, Pawan Hans which is in its last phase of strategic disinvestment had only 686 employees till July 2020 after which both shareholders, Centre with 51%, and ONGC with 49% decided to disinvest their entire equity shareholdings with a transfer of management control.

Further talking about the company's capital, it stood at Rs 560 crore as of March 31, 2020. While the PSU revenue of the company has been falling since 2016, its total revenue stood at Rs 376.8 crore with a loss of 8.1 crores. 

Image: Twitter/@AaiKmbAirport