ISLAMABAD, Sept 17: The Cabinet Committee on Privatisation (CCoP) on Wednesday decided to hold rebidding of Thatta Cement among top four bidder but Lahore High Court, Rawalpindi bench issued a stay order on its further sale process.

The highest bidder of Thatta Cement, Haji Saifullah Group, had approached the LHC on the ground that second highest bidder Al-Abbas Group was allowed to raise its bid price from Rs6.60 per share to Rs9 per share to match the reference price within three days of open bidding.

Haji Saifullah contended that being the highest bidder he had the first right to raise its bid within three days after the open bidding but the Privatization commission had violated its own rules by allowing second bidder to improve its bid. The court issued a stay order.

The Cabinet Committee on Privatization (CCoP) meeting which took place early in the morning decided to hold rebidding. It was decided to invite all the four top bidders to start bidding from the floor price of Rs9.20 per share to provide a level-playing field to all.

Finance Minister Shaukat Aziz, who presided over the CCoP meeting, told Dawn that there was a dispute between the bidders and hence the privatisation board recommendation was rejected and rebidding was ordered. He did not agree that ministry of industries had objections over the lower bid price.

Official sources said that industries ministry had told the committee that during the earlier bidding last year Thatta cement had fetched a highest bid of over Rs1 billion for 71.7975 million shares while this time the highest price offered was Rs646 million.

The official statement issued by the Privatisation Commission did not mention decision of the CCoP on Thatta cement because it was unclear about the status of the CCoP decision in view of the LHC stay order.

An official who declined to be identified said the CCoP was unaware that Haji Saifullah had approached the court and the court had stayed the proceedings. He said it would have to be examined whether the CCoP decision met the requirement of the court since Haji Saifullah had challenged the Privatization Commission decision of allowing the second highest bidder to raise its bid while CCoP rejected it and provided an opportunity to all.

The statement said a representative of State Bank of Pakistan apprised the meeting of the status of the privatisation of 49 per cent shares of Allied bank of Pakistan.

The committee directed the central bank to chalk out a schedule for the privatization of the ABL shares. The committee was further informed that 12 EOIs have been received from the commercial banks, DFIs, investment banks and leasing companies.

The CCOP also approved the sale of assets belonging to Associated Cement Rohri Limited (ACRL) to National Transport Company for Rs255 million.

The Industries Ministry had also objected to the sale of Rohri Cement on the grounds that it should be revived first so that a running plant could attract higher price. This was, however, overruled by the CCoP.

Associated Cement Rohri Limited fully owned by State Cement Corporation of Pakistan was set up at Rohri in 1938 and incorporated as Public Limited Company in 1990. The unit had been producing ordinary Portland Cement, Slag Cement and Sulphate Cement.

All physical assets including plant/equipment and machinery, spares, land and vehicles are all included in this sale. Nine parties deposited earnest money of Rs25 million each and participated in the bidding last month. The highest bid of Rs225m was made by National Transport Company followed by Rs250m by D.G. Khan Cement Company and Rs240m by Al-Hamza Ship-breaking Company.