MSTC: Who sells the government's scrap, and for how long?

Small cap E-auction services 29 October 2026 · 16 min read · Part 1: 2 min · By Pranami Hayaran

What the company does

When a steel plant, a coal company or a state government wants to sell scrap, iron ore, coal, a mining block or a plot of land, it often asks MSTC to run the sale as an online auction, and MSTC keeps a fee. The government owns 64.75% of it through the Ministry of Steel. In FY26 its fees came to ₹369.66 crore and its profit after tax was ₹221.69 crore. It has 300 staff, a head office in Kolkata and 16 regional and branch offices, and its shares have traded on the NSE and BSE since 29 March 2019.

Why this company, why now

What set it off. On 3 June 2026 the Cabinet approved a scheme to help about 2.07 lakh owners replace old trucks and buses in Delhi, spending ₹9,585 crore over 2 years. The next day 1.31 crore MSTC shares changed hands, against 1.64 lakh the day before.

MSTC's shares jumped in June and slid from September

MSTC's share price at each day's close on NSE, October 2025 to mid-October 2026. It rose 19% on 4 June 2026, the day after a scheme for old trucks in Delhi was approved.

₹ per share, closing price

4 June 2026: up 19% the day after the Delhi truck scheme, and the day the Coal Exchange Rules came out

NSE end-of-day prices · 24 October 2025 to 14 October 2026

What the market thinks. Buyers took vehicle scrapping to be MSTC's business. But while MSTC auctions the government's own old vehicles, this scheme is for private owners and runs on the transport ministry's PARIVARTAN portal, so the link is indirect: old trucks must be scrapped at a registered yard, and MSTC's joint venture with Mahindra runs 6 such yards, out of many. The shares peaked at ₹785.65 on 7 September and fell through October, which no filing explains.

What the filings show. The rule that matters came out on 4 June 2026, moving coal sold online onto exchanges (Regulation and policy), so the price rose on a scheme that barely touches MSTC as a deadline fell on a main auction line.

History

MSTC was set up on 9 September 1964 as Metal Scrap Trade Corporation, the government's official channel for scrap, and it has run coal auctions online since 2004.

It also ran a trading business, buying raw material for steel makers and keeping it at their plants. That went wrong in FY19, when MSTC set aside ₹432.00 crore for debts it would not collect and lost ₹324.47 crore, its only loss year on record. Its auditor later said MSTC had no proper controls over that stock.

In March 2019 the government sold 17,670,400 shares to the public at ₹120, the lowest price in its range, and the money went to the government, not to MSTC.

How the business works

How a sale runs on MSTC, from seller to buyer

Read from top to bottom. MSTC does the shaded steps; the seller and the bidders do the rest. MSTC is paid only while sellers keep picking it.

MSTC annual report, presentations and investor calls; the government's buying and selling rules · FY26

MSTC acts as the seller's agent: it lists the goods, runs the auction, holds the bidders' deposits and collects the payment. The seller pays MSTC a fee, and bidders pay a registration fee.

The fee is charged in 3 ways. For scrap and iron ore, MSTC takes a share of the sale value, and for scrap it is paid only if the goods sell. For coal, mining blocks and land it charges a fixed fee per auction, which for land has no link to the value. Websites built for ministries are paid for as projects. MSTC never publishes its fee rates.

In FY26, ₹79,582 crore of goods were sold on MSTC's websites, and its auction revenue was about 0.41% of that. Why this matters: the seller picks the auctioneer, so MSTC earns only while it keeps being picked.

Products and segments

Goods sold on MSTC swing with one-off government sales

Goods sold, and bought, through MSTC by kind, FY19 to FY26. One-off sales such as spectrum swing e-sale. Scrap is a thin slice but earns about half of auction revenue.

₹ THOUSAND CRORE

ScrapE-saleCoalIron oreOther

E-sale includes one-off government sales such as spectrum. Other is the value of goods MSTC helped buyers buy. ₹1 thousand crore is ₹1,000 crore. Goods MSTC traded itself are left out.

MSTC annual reports, value of goods transacted · FY19 to FY26

Until FY26 MSTC reported 2 businesses. Auctions, which it calls e-commerce, made up 93.11% of revenue, and the rest was trading, which brought in ₹25.47 crore in FY26 at almost no cost and stops from FY27.

Management says scrap brings in 50% to 55% of auction revenue. Coal was about 10% in FY24 and 4% to 5% in FY25, the year Coal India left. If coal is back at about 10%, it is worth about ₹33 crore a year, or 9% of FY26 revenue, by this report's estimate. Running online buying for government offices earned only ₹8.43 crore. MSTC promised a breakdown in May 2025 but has not given one.

Customers

No single customer brings in 10% or more of revenue. Sellers include Coal India, NMDC (the state iron ore miner), the coal and mines ministries and several states, and for Telangana alone MSTC sold ₹7,244 crore of land and flats in FY26. Among private companies, Indus Towers is the biggest customer.

MSTC's own risk list says most of its work comes by nomination, meaning it is picked without a tender, though some is won by tender. Coal India's auctions came back to MSTC through bidding, on a 2-year contract, and its linkage auctions, which sell long-term coal supply, were won for 3 years.

In FY25 public sector banks were told to use another website for their property auctions. So a whole type of work can leave on one government order.

Costs and inputs

Each ₹100 of MSTC's FY26 revenue left ₹60 of profit

Each line of MSTC's FY26 accounts as a share of its revenue. Staff is the biggest cost. Interest on bank deposits, much of it on bidders' money, adds about what tax takes.

MSTC FY26 annual report · FY26

Staff is the biggest cost, taking ₹26.71 of every ₹100 of revenue, or ₹32.9 lakh a person, and a pay revision is due in 2027. Other costs take ₹12.67, including the new Delhi office and spending on social projects.

Most costs are fixed, so extra revenue mostly becomes profit. Interest on bank deposits adds another ₹18.49, and tax takes about 25% of profit before tax.

Pricing power

MSTC agrees its fee with each client, at contracted rates, except for the government's old vehicles, where the Ministry of Steel sets MSTC's fee. The scrap fee moves with scrap prices, and in FY25 management said prices fell but volumes rose.

The work is easy to copy. Management says online auctions have few barriers to entry and that clients building their own websites is the biggest competition, while GeM, the government's own buying website, has hurt MSTC's online buying business.

The January to March quarter is the busiest, with 32% of FY26 revenue.

Operations and capacity

MSTC runs its websites from its own data centre in Kolkata, with a backup in Mumbai, and more than 2,60,000 clients have signed up.

Its one big asset is a new office at the World Trade Centre in New Delhi, bought for ₹129.65 crore from the housing ministry through NBCC, a state builder. MSTC got the keys on 1 April 2025.

Growth drivers and guidance

Management aims for double-digit growth in auctions, and in the April to June 2026 quarter auction revenue rose 27.79%, mostly from mining blocks and minerals.

Each new business is waiting on someone else:

• A market for recycling credits. Companies need these under EPR (extended producer responsibility) rules. MSTC built the market for the Central Pollution Control Board, but it is still waiting for approval, which is not MSTC's decision.
• TReDS, a website where small suppliers sell their unpaid bills to banks. It needs RBI approval, and MSTC has applied.
• A travel booking site, built with EaseMyTrip, which is waiting for approval from IATA, the airlines' trade body.
• Vehicle scrapping, through the joint venture with Mahindra, which made ₹0.20 crore in the April to June quarter after 4 years of losses.