"The Government would now like to make its own evaluation to ensure that the there is some sort of a consensus on the consideration," sources said. According to them, this will not take too long and could be done within a month. To date, there is no idea on who the merchant banker could be though the grapevine has it that SBI Caps will bag the mandate.

Lubrizol India is a 60:40 joint venture between the Government and Lubrizol Corporation of the US. More than two years ago, the Centre decided to exit from the alliance so that it would become a 50:50 tieup between Lubrizol and a local player. At that time, the Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) was close to clinchingthe deal, but the delay in reaching a decision on the valuation of the Government's stake saw ONGC lose interest and drop out of the plan.

It was at this stage that IOC entered the picture and over the last year, with a change in Government and the general political instability, work has progressed rather rapidly. The top brass of IOC and Lubrizol Corporation met recently in the UK to thrash out various modalities of the new joint venture which included a new board of directors, scope of operations etc. What remains now is the completion of the exercise by the Government to appoint a merchant banker and get on with the process of selling its stake.

"By the end of April, IOC will have bought out the Centre's 60 per cent holding and will, in turn, sell 10 per cent to Lubrizol Corporation," sources said. There are no details yet on the valuation made by I-Sec though there have been unconfirmed reports that it is around Rs 700 per share of Lubrizol India.

This time round, there is no reason for theGovernment to delay the process as it is keen on getting on with the process of meeting its disinvestment target for 1999-2000. The fact also remains that it has clearly indicated in the previous budget that it plans to confine its stake to 26 per cent in non-strategic PSUs. Lubrizol India can rightly be classified as one in the opinion of experts.

The company was incorporated in 1966 and its manufacturing unit is situated at Turbhe village in Navi Mumbai. It has a second unit for manufacture of extreme pressure additives at Taloja in Raigad district. Lubrizol India makes and markets additive systems for automotive and industrial lubricants and also develops other speciality chemicals for the petroleum industry. The latest report of the petroleum ministry states that the company reported a turnover of around Rs 363 crore in 1997-98.