Equitas Holdings IPO draws huge response, subscribed more than 17 times

MUMBAI: The first initial public offering (IPO) of the current fiscal, Equitas Holdings, one of the eight micro-finance institutions that won small finance bank licence last year, was subscribed more than 17 times on the last day of offer attracting bids of nearly Rs 26,300 crore, as investors across categories lapped up the shares.

This, incidentally, is the seventh best IPO in terms of subscription in the past one year. Equitas had received orders for about 239 crore shares as against 13.92 crore shares being offered, according to data from NSE and BSE at 7 pm.

High networth and institutional investors were active bidders, placing orders worth 57 times and 15 times the number of shares available. The company could raise about Rs 2,200 crore at the upper band of the offer price.

Although the retail demand was not that overwhelming as in some of the other categories, the portion reserved for them was subscribed 1.38 times. This is the biggest IPO since Bharti Infratel’s Rs 4,155 -crore issue that hit the market in December 2012. The company has set the price band of the IPO at Rs 109-110 per share.

“Our company has performed consistently when it comes to revenue growth, with top line trebling in the last three years. This along with reasonable valuation is one of the reasons for such a good response to our IPO,” said PN Vasudevan, MD, Equitas Holding.

The company has successfully raised Rs 652 crore by selling shares at Rs 110 apiece to 15 anchor investors, including ICICI Prudential MF, Birla Sun Life Trustee, Reliance Life Insurance, SBI MF, Franklin Templeton MF, HDFC Standard Life Insurance and Sundaram MF.