Mumbai: The Government's offer for sale of its 10 per cent stake in ONGC, to raise over Rs 10,000 crore, received cumulative bids 6.44 times of the offer size at the end of bidding process today (March 13, 2004).

Investors placed bids for over 91.94 crore shares as against issue size of 14.26 crore shares of face value of Rs 10 each available for subscription, according to the latest data available with Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE).

The maximum bids for 51.07 crore shares were placed at Rs 750 per share, the higher end of the price band and for 11.50 crore shares at Rs 680, the lower end of the price band.

The overseas institutional investors have actively bid for the offering across the price band of Rs 680-750, investment banking sources said.

Investors have also put in bids for 12.78 crore shares at and Rs 700.

The credibility of figures placed on BSE Website has come under a cloud due to some overcounting in data collation process.

BSE spokesperson had yesterday said that the data was collected on continuous basis at aggregate level for book-built issues and there could have been some over-estimation.

The netting was not done for multiple options and it was not possible to specify the extent of overcounting, he had added.

The investment banking sources said though bidding was closed, the data processing work would continue till late in night to get the exact level of response.