The government has appointed Riaz Ahmed & Company, a Karachi-based chartered accountant firm, as an advisor to evaluate Pakistan Steel Mills Corporation's (PSMC) assets to fix price per share for offering its 10 percent shares to the public.
The advisor will divide PSMC's non transferable assets-land-into core and non-core categories, besides working out the price for offering its shares to the pubic. The advisor's evaluation report will also set a direction for offering PSMC for strategic sale.
An official in the Privatisation Commission (PC) told Business Recorder on Monday that the advisor's report will be presented to the PC board and the Cabinet Committee on Privatisation (CCoP) for getting a go-ahead for PSMC initial public offering (IPO) as well as strategic sale. Recently, the federal government has replaced Major General Javed (Retd) as PSMC chairman with a former bureaucrat Aftab Moeen.
A PC official team will visit PSMC shortly to brief the new chairman on the decision taken by the board and other forums regarding the company's public offering and strategic sale. The CCoP approved the inclusion of PSMC in the privatisation program on April 1, 2005. This was followed by appointment of the Citigroup Global Markets Ltd as financial advisor for the privatisation of PSMC as a going concern on July 18, 2005 in order to recommend terms and conditions for privatisation, including valuation/reference price.
The PC Board had approved sale of 10 percent shares of PMSC through IPO. It needed evaluation to work out the prices per share at which PSMC's 10 percent stakes could be offered to the general public, besides deciding the controversial question of offering this important entity for strategic sale. The PSMC sell-off had pushed Shaukat Aziz's government into troubled water. The Supreme Court struck the sale of the PSMC questioning its procedure and directed the then government to go back to the Council of Common Interest (CCI).
The order of the apex court was implemented in letter and spirit and PSMC's strategic sale was approved once again. However, the case pending with the apex court for review of its decision barred the Shaukat Aziz government to offer this entity to the bidders for strategic sale. Now the appointment of a local chartered firm for evaluation of the assets indicates that the government was mulling the option of offering PSMC for IPO and then for strategic sale.
Comments
Comments are closed.