The six book-built issues -- the sale of residual stakes in IBP, IPCL and CMC, the initial public offering of Dredging Corporation of India and 10 per cent equity float in Oil and Natural Gas Corporation and Gail India Ltd -- that the government has planned for 2003-04 are unlikely to hit the market in January.

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"The prospectus for none of the issues has been filed with the Securities and Exchange Board of India as yet, and since it takes 45 days from the date of filing of the prospectus to the opening of the issue, no offload will take place in the first month of the new year," an official told Business Standard.

Given the fact that the government intends to complete these offloads in 2003-04, it means the issues will be spread over February and March.

The official said it was likely that the residual stake sales would happen before the big-ticket oil and gas floats.

This is because the process for the book-built market offering of the government's 33.95 per cent in IPCL, 26 per cent in IBP and 26.25 per cent in CMC had started earlier.

To ensure that the equity float is on time, the lead managers for the ONGC and Gail issues have been appointed in a record time of eight days.

Also, Sebi will be requested to reduce the listing norms for the issues.

The government is expected to raise approximately Rs 14,500 crore (Rs 145 billion) from the six issues. The equity offload in ONGC is slated to be the biggest initial public offering by any Indian company.

The lead managers for the issue -- Kotak Mahindra Capital, DSP Merrill Lynch and JM Morgan Stanley -- won the mandate by quoting an unheard of fee of 0.075 per cent of the transaction proceeds.