India conducts large-scale divestment of state-owned enterprises

The Indian government is conducting a large-scale divestment of its stakes in various state-owned enterprises (SOEs). Despite a sluggish stock market, the government has successfully divested ten state-owned companies since the beginning of the year.

Key divestments include Cochin Shipyard, Indian Railways Finance Corp, NHPC, and Coal India. A major transaction involved the sale of a 6.5% stake in the Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC), which raised approximately US$ 3.3 billion. To attract investors, the government applied price discounts of around 10%, resulting in demand that exceeded the offered shares.

According to market data provider Prime Database, the government has raised nearly 270 billion rupees through the sale of nine other SOEs in 2026, marking the highest level of divestment in over a decade. While some of these moves are driven by regulatory requirements to reduce ownership levels for exchange listing purposes, the scale and speed of these transactions are significantly higher than in previous years.