BSE IPO fully subscribed on Day 2

24 Jan 2017


The Rs1,234.4-crore initial public offer (IPO) of BSE Ltd was fully subscribed on the second day when the sale of shares for the public opened. The issue was subscribed 1.01 times by the afternoon, data from National Stock Exchange showed.

The IPO of BSE Ltd, Asia's oldest stock exchange, got a big boost with retail investors bidding for 86 per cent of the portion reserved for them in the first few hours on Day 2, when subscription opened for retail investors.

On Saturday, BSE sold 46,28,158 equity shares of face value Rs2 each to anchor investors at a price of Rs806 per share, raising a total Rs373 crore, according to a BSE statement.

BSE is selling up to 15,427,197 shares in an offer-for-sale, which closes on Wednesday.

The offer is a 100-per cent book-building one, and existing shareholders are selling 15.42 million shares through the offer-for-sale route. The issue represents 28.26 per cent of BSE's pre-issue capital.

More than 300 of the existing shareholders are selling 15.4 million shares through the offer-for-sale route, which work out to around 30 per cent of the total holding.

The existing shareholders of BSE include Bajaj Holdings Investment, Caldwell India Holdings, Acacia Banyan Partners, Singapore Exchange, the Mauritius-based arm of American investor George Soros' Quantum Fund and foreign fund Atticus.

There are around 9,000 shareholders in the BSE, in which originally brokers mainly held shares. However, a host of foreign investors and domestic financial institutions have acquired shares over the years and the IPO will provide some of them an exit opportunity to monetise their assets. Shares of nearly 3,000 companies trade on this platform.

The global co-ordinators and book running lead managers are Edelweiss, Axis Capital, Jefferies India, and Nomura.

The shares be will listed on rival bourse National Stock Exchange (NSE) early next month.

Rival NSE also filed draft papers with Sebi last month for an estimated Rs10,000 crore IPO.

Sebi, meanwhile, has notified rules allowing foreign investors to own up to 15 per cent stake in an exchange, a move that is expected to help attract more overseas funds.