MUMBAI, February 27: The promoter of Ranbaxy Laboratories, Parvinder Singh, has sold around 20 lakh equity shares of the company at a price of Rs 650 per share. Over a dozen foreign institutional investors (FIIs) have picked up these shares in a deal struck by JM Financial and Morgan Stanley.With this sale, Parvinder Singh (who is also the chairman of the company) and associates have sold 35 lakh equity shares - worth nearly Rs 230 crore - in the last one week. This represents about 7 per cent of Ranbaxy's equity capital of Rs 49.8 crore. Afte the deal, Parvinder's stake in the company will come down to around 32 per cent.
Singh and associates are expected to get around Rs 130 crore from Friday's deal alone. They had sold 15 lakh equity shares at Rs 650 per share - worth nearly Rs 100 crore earlier this week. The FIPB had earlier rejected the proposal to sell these shares to an offshore special purpose vehicle (SPV) following objections raised by the Finance Ministry over the sale of locked-in shares. Itis learnt that Singh is reducing his stake to retire the costly debt he had taken to exercise warrants rights for acquiring shares at Rs 400 per share in 1993.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
