The IFCI board has begun short-listing of bidders for 26% stake in the company. The IFCI board met on Tuesday for the purpose and is believed to have started one to one negotiations with all 10 bidders.
An IFCI official said the company would possibly not make public the names of the shortlisted bidders now and would instead inform the parties concerned. Ernst and Young is yet to submit its report, it may submit tomorrow or later, a senior official of IFCI said. The financial institution has appointed E&Y as consultant to find a strategic partner which is currently evaluating the initial bids.
The names of the shortlisted candidates were to be announced by September 25. The company has received very good response with 10 major international and domestic companies, including IDFC, Kotak Mahindra Bank, GE Capital, Cargill (FS), Newbridge Asia, Blackstone, French bank Natixis, having filed the expression of interest (EoI). A consortium led by Japan?s Shinsei Bank, Punjab National Bank and JC Flowers and another with Sterlite and Morgan Stanley are also in the race. Also, a group led by Wilbur Ross with Standard Chartered Bank, HDFC and Goldman Sachs have also submitted the EoI.
Meanwhile, the oldest development finance institution in the country has been hit hard by the recent resignations of its top executives: chairman N Balasubramanian and director Vinayak Chatterjee had stepped down from the board recently.
While Balasubramanian is associated as advisor with Standard Chartered Bank, which is a partner in a bidder consortium, Chatterjee is chairman of Feedback Ventures in which HDFC and IDFC have stakes.
However, IFCI chairman and managing director Atul Kumar Rai has said the resignations will not have any effect on the process of stake sale while claiming that the ?stake sale process is transparent and fair?.