SUUTI hopes to offload all stakes by next March

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Mumbai, April 5: The Specified Undertaking of Unit Trust Of India (SUUTI) is likely to liquidate all its holdings by March 2006. It has also got the mandate to park money in the forthcoming IPOs to generate better returns for the Government of India.

SUUTI will not be in haste to offload its strategic holdings in the seven financial institutions where it currently holds stake in the range of 3-28%. It will be on the lookout for strategic buyers for the stake sale to ensure it gets a better price and there is no conflict of interest between the strategic buyers and the current stakeholders.

On the sidelines of a UTI AMC press meet, executive director (in charge of operations at SUUTI) Ajeet Prasad told FE, “we are optimistic that we will be able to offload all our strategic holdings by March 2006. We will carefully examine our current shareholding pattern in each financial institutions and offload our stake only to strategic buyers who have ample knowledge of the business, so that there is no conflict at a later stage.”

SUUTI has already been selling its holdings to strategic buyers. As per information on the BSE website on January 25 2005, SUUTI sold 37,94,588 shares of IDBI to Life Insurance Corporation at a price of Rs 110 per share. Similarly, it sold 6,21,962 shares of LIC Housing Finance to LIC at a price of Rs 252 per share.

Mentioning two particular cases of Crisil and IDFC, Mr Prasad said, “it is not just about finding a strategic buyer. We may also participate in the open offer of Crisil and the initial public offering of IDFC.”

SUUTI has stakes of 27.81% in National Securities and Depository Ltd, and a 26.9% stake in Infrastructure Leasing and Financial Services, 16.96% in Stock Holding Corporation of India Ltd, 3% in Industrial Development and Financial Corporation, 4.4% in the National Stock Exchange, 8.32% in Crisil and 7.95% in Icra.