Coal India to rope in more merchant bankers for asset buys

KOLKATA: Amid allegations of poor quality of coal supplied and acute shortage of the commodity, Coal India is seeking overseas acquisitions with a sense of urgency. As a step in this direction, it has decided to induct more merchant bankers and invite expressions of interest from them on possible targets, besides extending the contract of existing merchant bankers.

Eligible candidates will need to have completed two merger or acquisition deals worth $500 million successfully in the mining sector in the last three years.

At present, the state-owned company has RBS, Bank of Canada and BofA-Merrill Lynch along with its Indian arm DSP Merrill Lynch on board as its merchant bankers.

"In order to conduct due-diligence on the proposals that we have received, we extended the contract period of our existing merchant bankers and have decided to induct a few new. A few merchant bankers wanted to be part of the team...so we invited an expression of interest," a CIL official said.