The government on Friday described as successful the offers for sale of equity in five companies, including IBP and GAIL, with Divestment Minister Arun Shourie declaring that all issues had been oversubscribed.

"On the very first day GAIL issue has been subscribed 107 per cent despite earlier scepticism," he told reporters after a series of meetings with officials.

"We will get the targeted figures (for divestment at Rs 14,500 crore for 03-04) that the finance minister had indicated," he said, adding that foreign institutional investors had shown tremendous interest.

Shourie parried questions on government's tough talk and action against market manipulators, saying, "The response is so good why talk about things of the past."

He said the offer for residual equity shares in IPCL was oversubscribed three times and a meeting for allocation of shares would take place on Saturday.

CMC was oversubscribed five times and IBP 1.5 times, he said, adding that Dredging Corporation was also fully subscribed and by the close of the day bids totalling 1.5-1.6 times would be received.

Asked about allocation, Shourie said, "It would be our effort to give preference to retail investors but their would be other factors also."

"In GAIL and ONGC early investors factor is weighing in our mind," he said.

The government has set a floor price of Rs 170 per share for sale of 24 per cent equity in IPCL, while Rs 475 per share has been stipulated for CMC where it selling 26 per cent.

In case of IBP, floor price has been fixed at Rs 620 and for GAIL at Rs 185; in case of Dredging Corporation a price band of Rs 385-400 has been mandated.

ONGC, where government is selling 10 per cent stake, would hit the markets on March 5.

Govt monitoring public issues