State owned Coal India is preparing to launch the initial public offering of its Mahanadi Coalfields unit as early as this month, Bloomberg reported on November 3, citing people familiar with the matter. Investor meetings have begun, and the sale could start in the second half of November or early December, raising as much as $1 billion and valuing Mahanadi at as much as $10 billion, the people said. Deliberations are ongoing and the size, valuation and timing could still change.
The structure is fixed by the draft prospectus already filed with the Securities and Exchange Board of India. The offer consists entirely of shares sold by Coal India, with no fresh issuance: the parent, which owns 100 percent of Mahanadi, plans to sell as many as 661.84 million shares, a 10 percent stake, and Mahanadi itself receives nothing. SBI Capital Markets, Axis Capital, BOB Capital Markets, IDBI Capital Markets and IIFL Capital Services are the book running lead managers.
Mahanadi was India’s largest coal producer by output in the fiscal year ended March 2026, producing 218.31 million tonnes, about a fifth of domestic production, according to its prospectus. The float follows the same template as South Eastern Coalfields, whose draft prospectus was covered in yesterday’s edition: an offer for sale of a minority stake in a producing subsidiary, priced off current coal earnings, with the cash flowing up to the state owned parent rather than into the mines.