A meeting of the Inter-Ministerial Group may be held next week to discuss the draft shareholders and share-purchase agreements for divestment of the State Trading Corporation.

"The IMG has already met once, and since some changes have been suggested so another meeting may be convened next week for discussing the draft transaction documents for STC divestment," divestment ministry said.

The government proposes to disinvest close to 65 per cent stake in the company through a strategic sale along with transfer of management control while 16 per cent of the remaining equity would be retained by government and 10 per cent offered to employees.

It has mandated Ernst & Young to act as global advisors. As many as a dozen bidders including Videocon, Adani's and others had expressed interest in acquiring STC.

STC has an equity base of Rs 30 crore (Rs 300 million) of which government shareholding stands at Rs 27 crore (Rs 270 million). It had a net worth of Rs 420 crore (Rs 4.20 billion) as on March 2001 while net profits stood at Rs 26 crore (Rs 260 million).

Earlier, the commerce ministry had mooted a proposal to separate Tea Trading Corporation of India Ltd from STC by transferring it to Project Engineering Corporation, another public sector unit under the same ministry, and had subsequently circulated a Cabinet note for seeking the government's approval.

Subsequently, the department of company affairs had said that a legal view on demerger of loss-making Tea Trading Corporation of India from STC may be required on the ground that a petition on liquidation of TTCIL was already pending in Kolkata high court.