Coal India Ltd’s Rs 15,000-crore mega initial public offer, the country’s largest so far, got demands for 1.57 times of shares on offer hours before closure of the second day of the issue on Tuesday.

The issue attracted bids for 99.11 crore shares against 63.1 crore equities on offer, as per the data available till 4:00 pm on the National Stock Exchange.

The issue is priced in the range of Rs 225 and Rs 245 a share.

The government is divesting 10 per cent of its stake in CIL — the world’s largest coal producer.

At the upper end of price range, Coal India public issue is worth Rs 15,475 crore and at the lower end it would fetch about Rs 14,211.81 crore.

The offer closes on 21st October. For institutional buyers the IPO will close on 20th October.

Issue price will be decided by a Group of Ministers on 23rd October.

Primary market analysts believe participation from retail investors will pick up in the last two days, as they usually follow the trend of institutional investors.

Besides, there is one additional exclusive day reserved for them (21st October).

The navratna company is expected to list on the domestic bourses by 4th November.

Anil Ambani Group company Reliance Power’s public issue, which mopped up Rs 11,500 crore in January 2008, was India’s biggest IPO before the ongoing CIL public offer.

CIL is the largest coal producer and coal reserve holder in the world, contributing 82 per cent of total coal production in India.

Citigroup Global Markets India, Deutsche Equities India, DSP Merrill Lynch, Enam Securities, Kotak Mahindra Capital and Morgan Stanley India are book running lead managers to the CIL IPO.