New Delhi: Government today (Mar 15, 2004) announced a selling price of Rs 750 per share for public offer of 14.26 crore shares in Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) where retail investors would get allotment at Rs 712.5 per share, Disinvestment Minister Arun Shourie told reporters in New Delhi.

Government would mop up Rs 10,500 crore from the sale of 10 per cent equity, Shourie said.

The offer received 7.6 lakh retail applications and retailers would get whatever shares they had applied for. About 350 high quality institutional bidders had also applied for shares, he added.

The offering constitutes Government's 10 per cent holding in the energy major which would stand diluted to 74 per cent post-offer, from 84 per cent.

DSP Merrill Lynch, J M Morgan Stanley and Kotak Mahindra were the book running lead managers to the issue.

Government had budgeted to raise Rs 14,500 crore from sale of shares in six companies including GAIL, CMC, IPCL and IBP.

It has already realised over Rs 3,600 crore from public offers in IPCL, CMC, IBP, Dredging Corporation and GAIL while targeting Rs 10,000 crore from sale of shares in ONGC alone.

"There was enough appetite in the market and ONGC issue satisfied it to some extent... otherwise the (stock) markets could have been overheated... This was the right time for the issue," DSP Merrill Lynch chairman Hemendra Kothari said earlier.

Uday Kotak, chairman of Kotak Mahindra, the lead manager for the public offer, said, "ONGC (success) is a proud moment for India, Indians and Indian capital market... We have come a long way from Rs 1000 crore Maruti issue to Rs 10,000 crore ONGC issue.