Pakistan is hopeful of generating $500 million for the Oil and Gas Development Company Limited (OGDCL) exchangeable bonds by the close of the current fiscal year on June 30. An official source said two teams have started briefing foreign investors on exchangeable bonds of OGDCL at road shows in Abu Dhabi, London and Singapore and Hong Kong.
After ascertaining the feedback from the investors the government would make the final decision to sell the bonds before the end of the current fiscal year. The government had initiated the privatisation process on fast track basis to bridge the fiscal deficit that is expected to reach 6 percent of the GDP during the outgoing fiscal year.
Since, it is not purely a privatisation matter as the generated funds would be utilised for fiscal deficit a joint team of Finance Division and Privatisation Commission would administer the transaction, the source said. The transaction would be made during the current fiscal year as after the road shows the investor feed back would be there and signing of the deal could be completed in just a few hours.
The transaction would not be reflected on the OGDCL balance sheet as government was selling its 10 percent share holding, he added. The government had appointed a financial advisory consortium consisting of Citibank, Credit Suisse, JP Morgan and BMA Capital, for the issuance of OGDCL’s exchangeable bonds of at least $ 500 million. The consortium is tasked to monetise upto 10 percent of government shareholding or up to 430,000,000 shares through an exchangeable bond transaction.