Infosys ADS receives huge response
Bangalore: Infosys Technologies Ltd converted its 14 million Indian shares into US stock at $67 each in a billion-dollar sponsored secondary offering on Thursday.

The pricing of the American Depository Shares (ADS) was at a discount of 2.5 per cent over Wednesday's Nasdaq closing of $68.75. However, the ADS pricing was at a 34 per cent premium over the domestic closing price.

At this pricing, the ADS issue size works out to $938 million, making it the largest sponsored ADS offering by an Indian firm. The underwriters have a seven-day option to buy an additional two million ADS. In the event of this option being exercised, the issue size would escalate to over a billion dollars.

Infosys is offering 3.2 million shares to Japanese investors through a public offer without listing (POWL) as part of the issue. This is the first POWL issue by any Indian company. The issue would increase the Infosys float on Nasdaq to 14 per cent from eight per cent.

"The billion-dollar issue was oversubscribed by almost eight times, with Japanese investors showing keen interest. The issue was oversubscribed in Japan by three times," said Mr T. V. Mohandas Pai, Chief Financial Officer, in a post-issue conference call.
About 15,000 retail investors offered to sell some 52.4 million shares in the issue, Mr Pai said. The combined holdings of all the shareholders who tendered their shares in the issue was over 18.43 crore shares.

The allocation, which is based on the Government of India formula and linked to the shareholders' holdings, was at 8.64 per cent. For every hundred shares tendered by the shareholders, about 8.64 shares were accepted depending on the holdings, Mr Pai added.

With the maximum size of the issue pegged at 16 million, the unsold shares would be returned to all selling shareholders by June 15. The company will not receive any proceeds of this offering and the net proceeds, after the issue expenses, will be distributed to the selling shareholders within 30 days, Mr Pai said.

The issue saw a robust demand from institutional and quality investors, Mr Pai said. About 50 per cent of the demand came from the US investors, while Europe and Asia accounted for 30 and 20 per cent, respectively.

Infosys' Deputy Managing Director, Mr S. Gopalakrishnan, said with this issue, the company aims to enhance its visibility in the overseas market. "We are a step closer to our objective of getting into the Nasdaq indices," he said.

The promoters and directors of Infosys, who have sold over 5.16 million shares in the issue, will be netting over Rs 1,500 crore.
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Citigroup arm to pick up stake in Lakshmi Overseas
Mumbai: The private equity arm of Citigroup will acquire 14.69 per cent equity stake in the Punjab-based Lakshmi Overseas Industries Ltd (LOIL) at a price of Rs304 a share, aggregating Rs57.76 crore, as per information supplied by LOIL to the stock exchanges.

Lakshmi Overseas, one of the largest integrated rice milling company, has said that its board has approved the preferential allotment of up to 19 lakh equity shares of Rs10 each to Citigroup Venture Capital International Growth Partnership Mauritius Ltd at Rs304 a share, which is at a discount of nearly ten per cent to the market price.

LOIL Continental Foods Ltd, an entity owned by the promoters' group, is picking up around five per cent stake in the company for Rs16.42 crore. The board has approved the offer.

The company has said that with this preferential allotment, the company will generate new funds of Rs78 crore which will be used for its power plant. The company has already announced its Rs150-crore expansion plan. Post issue, the promoters' shareholding would be at nearly 46 per cent.

The company has also has plans to increase its rice processing capacity by 1,000 tonnes per day to 3,100 tonnes per day at its plant at Khamano near Chandigarh by September. The company plans to set up a Rs90-crore power plant of 24 MW in two phases spread over 2005-06 and 2006-07 of 12 MW each, the company has said.

An extra ordinary general meeting will be held on June 20, to consider and approve the preferential allotment.
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Surana Tele promoters shed stake
Hyderabad: The Director of Surana Telecom, Devender Surana along with persons acting in concert have sold about 2.12 per cent shares in the Surana Telecom Ltd during May, according to a statement filed with the National Stock Exchange.

Surana said that the move was part of the exercise to bring down the promoters shareholding to 55 per cent as per guidelines.

The company has convened a board meeting early next month to finalise plans for a preferential offer, which could be made to a foreign institutional institution.

Details would be announced later, Surana said.
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