State-owned Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) has increased its stake in India’s largest power producer NTPC by 3.90 per cent after buying 32.15 crore shares in the open market.

LIC, which had 9.08 per cent stake earlier, hiked its shareholding in the company to 12.98 per cent by buying shares between July 25, 2014, and February 24, 2016, NTPC said in a filing to the BSE.

Mumbai: Retail investors on Wednesday showed little interest in the government’s Rs.5,000 crore share sale in power producer NTPC Ltd, subscribing to less than half the shares reserved for them on the second of the two-day offering.

Of the total 82.45 million shares on offer, retail investors placed bids for 36.36 million shares, stock exchange data showed. In all, 632.57 million shares were bid during the two-day offer for sale against the total size of 412.27 million shares.

With Life Insurance Corporation having subscribed to around 41% of NTPC’s issue of shares on Tuesday, the power producer’s offer for sale (OFS) sailed through attracting a total subscription of 1.8 times. The 32.98 crore shares reserved for institutional investors attracted a subscription of 57.4 crore shares, according to the BSE.

Disinvestment secretary Neeraj Gupta said foreign portfolio investors had bid for Rs 925.45 crore worth of shares. This would amount to about 12.7% of the total subscription received on Tuesday.

The 412 million shares, worth around Rs 5,000 crore, put on the block by the government in power utility NTPC have been fully subscribed.

The offer for sale (OFS) has so far seen (as of 11:45 am) 432 million bids — 1.3 times shares on offer. The indicative price, or the price at which most bids were received, was Rs 122.05 compared to the floor price of Rs 122 per share, data provided by the BSE showed.

New emission norms for thermal power plants are likely to increase NTPC's cost of producing power by 10 per cent. This extra cost would be passed on to consumers, executives with the country's largest power producer said.

After commitments made by the government during the Paris Climate Summit in December, the environment ministry notified new standards for thermal power stations relating to consumption of water, particulate matter, SO2, NOx and mercury.

The 1600-MW super thermal power project proposed by NTPC at Gajamara in Dhenkanal district is stuck over unavailability of coal.

The National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) had planned such projects at Darlipalli (in Sundargarh district) and Gajamara at the same time. While the Darlipalli project has made considerable progress, the one at Gajamara has stumbled in the absence of coal linkage.

Shares of Bharat Heavy Electricals slumped nearly 11% to Rs 107 after the state-owned company reported a huge loss of Rs 1,102 crore compared to a net profit of Rs 212.60 crore in the quarter ended December 31, 2014.

Total income for the quarter under review also declined to Rs 5,496 crore compared with Rs 6,472 crore in the same quarter ended December 2014.

New Delhi, Jan. 29: Thermal power major NTPC's third-quarter standalone net profit declined 18.90 per cent to Rs 2,492.87 crore from Rs 3,074 crore a year ago, because of a drop in revenue from the power generation segment.

Net profit in the April-December period of this fiscal rose to Rs 7,526.50 crore from Rs 7,346.83 crore a year ago.

Selecting from over 100 applications for the much-touted position of the chairman and managing director of NTPC, the country’s largest power generation company, the Cabinet's appointments committee approved Gurdeep Singh for the post.

Singh is currently the managing director of Gujarat State Electricity Company Limited (GESC). Having started his career in NTPC in 1987, Singh has a profile consisting of major names in the sector—both public and private companies. He was earlier associated with Calcutta Electric Supply Corporation, Powergen and IDFC Projects in different capacities.

In what could jeopardise the state-run thermal power producer Damodar Valley Corporation’s (DVC) debt reduction strategy, NTPC is likely to shelve a plan to take over DVC’s 2,520 MW Raghunathpur plant in West Bengal after the railways conveyed that it wasn’t interested in buying power from the utility.

The first phase of the Raghunathpur plant was scheduled for commissioning in 2010 but even after a delay of nearly five years and a revised cost estimate of R7,500 crore, the utility continues to suffer from issues related to land acquisition for the rail and water corridors. Besides, the plant has failed to tie up a buyer.

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