DLF board to discuss share sale on Wednesday

A man rides pass an advertisement of Indian property developer DLF Ltd. in Gurgaon June 11, 2007.

MUMBAI (Reuters) - DLF(DLF.NS), India's biggest property developer, said its board of directors will meet on Wednesday to consider the sale of shares to institutional and retail investors to comply with the minimum public shareholding rules.

DLF, 78.58 percent owned by its founders, is seeking shareholder approval for a share sale by June to meet the market regulator's requirement of having at least 25 percent public shareholding, which is mandatory for Indian listed companies.

The New Delhi-based developer, founded by billionaire K.P. Singh, is expected to sell about 81 million shares, raising about 20.31 billion rupees according to Reuters calculation based on its share price of 250.70 rupees as of Monday's close.

Shares in DLF, which builds homes and offices predominantly in north India, have surged more than 10 percent since the beginning of the year, outperforming the Sensex, which is down about 2 percent.

However, the company's shares are still trading at a significant discount to its life-time high of 1,208 rupees in January 2008.

At 11:04 a.m., shares in DLF, valued by the market at $7.76 billion as of Monday's close, were trading 1.6 percent higher at 254.65 rupees, outperforming the Sensex's 0.5 percent rise.

(Reporting by Aditi Shah; Editing by Jijo Jacob)