Government Okays 100% Stake Sale In Central Electronics Limited

Government has cleared sale of its entire 100 per cent stake in Central Electronics Limited (CEL), a state-owned engineering company, to Nandal Finance and Leasing Private Limited for Rs 210 crore, a statement issued by the finance ministry said on Monday.

The "winning bid of Rs 210,00,60000" was placed by Nandal Finance and Leasing Private Limited, the government said.

Government's stake sale in CEL was cleared by the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) empowered alternative mechanism, which comprises of Union Ministers Nirmala Sitharaman, Nitin Gadkari and Jitendra Singh, the statement added.

The winning bid of Nandal Finance was above the reserve price of Rs 194 crore fixed for the strategic sale.

"The entire disinvestment process has been carried out in a transparent manner, with due regard to confidentiality of the bidders, through multi-layered decision making involving the inter-ministerial group (IMG), core group of secretaries on disinvestment (CDG) and the empowered alternative mechanism (AM) at the apex Ministerial level.

The government further said that it expects the transaction to be completed during the current fiscal, i.e. 2021-22.

Interestingly, the disinvestment process for CEL had begun in October 2016. However, no financial bids were received in the initial attempt to sell the company.

A renewed disinvestment process then was initiated in February last year, official sources said.