Bharti Hexacom’s IPO sees lukewarm response with 34% subscription on Day 1

Bharti Hexacom’s initial public offering received a lukewarm response from the investors as it received a 34 percent subscription on the first day of bidding on Wednesday. This is the first public issue of the financial year 2024-25. The initial share sale of Bharti Hexacom received bids for 1,41,08,328 shares against 4,12,50,000 shares on offer, according to the NSE data.

The category for Retail Individual Investors (RIIs) subscribed 48 percent, while the quota for non-institutional investors received 36 percent subscription, and the portion for Qualified Institutional Buyers (QIBs) subscribed 29 percent.

On Tuesday, Bharti Airtel’s arm Bharti Hexacom said it has collected about Rs 1,924 crore from anchor investors. The company had fixed a price band of Rs 542-570 per share.

The company’s Rs 4,275 crore IPO is entirely an offer of sale (OFS) of 7.5 crore equity shares, indicating a 15 percent stake by Telecommunications Consultants India Ltd, with no fresh issue component.

Bharti Hexacom will not receive any proceeds from the IPO. At present, promoter Bharti Airtel holds a 70 percent stake, and the remaining 30 percent stake is owned by Telecommunications Consultants India.

The Bharti group’s previous IPO of Bharti Infratel, now known as Indus Towers, was in 2012. Bharti Hexacom provides telecommunication services in Rajasthan and the Northeast.

At the upper end of the price band, the IPO size will be Rs 4,275 crore. About 75 percent of the issue size has been reserved for qualified institutional buyers (QIBs), 15 percent for non-institutional investors, and the remaining 10 percent for retail investors.

Bharti Hexacom, which filed its preliminary IPO papers with Sebi on January 20, obtained its market watchdog’s nod on March 11 to float the maiden public issue.

SBI Capital Markets, Axis Capital, BOB Capital Markets, ICICI Securities, and IIFL Securities are the book-running lead managers of the public issue. ZeeNews