The Gas Authority of India's Rs16.2 billion $357 million public offer will have the brief honour of being India's largest equity offer in the last six years. By the end of this week, however, its brief moment of glory looks set to be blown away by India's mother of all privatizations from Oil and Natural Gas Corporation.
More important than records, Gail's offering was a tremendous success and an important boost to the government in the run-up to elections. For the first time in post-liberalization India, the government is going to meet its revenue target for state sales. And it has done so without throwing the shares away to investors at steep discounts....
