Aditya Birla Sun Life MF ends below listing price on debut

The stock closed at Rs 699.6, down Rs 12.4 over issue price of Rs 712 per share; it touched a high of Rs 723 and a low of Rs 695 with shares worth Rs 600 crore changing hands

Shares of Aditya Birla Sun Life Mutual Fund ended below their issue price during their stock market debut on Monday. The stock closed at Rs 699.6, down Rs 12.4 over issue price of Rs 712 per share. The stock touched a high of Rs 723 and a low of Rs 695 with shares worth Rs 600 crore changing hands. The disappointing debut follows muted response to Aditya Birla MF’s IPO. The issue was subscribed just 5.2 times thanks to bids from institutional investors. At the last close, the company was valued at Rs 20,150 crore.

Aditya Birla MF’s IPO was entirely a secondary share sale with promoters Aditya Birla Capital (ABCL) and Sun Life AMC partially divesting their holdings. The domestic partner sold just 2.85 million shares–less than 1 per cent of its stake–for about Rs 203 crore. Meanwhile, Canadian firm Sun Life divested 12.56 per cent holding, or 36 million shares, for Rs 2,565 crore.

At present, ABCL holds a 51 per cent stake, while Sun Life holds the remaining 49 per cent. Following the IPO, the total promoter stake in the fund house will fall from 100 per cent at present to 86.5 per cent.

Aditya Birla MF is the fourth pure-play asset management company to make its stock market debut. It joins peers HDFC MF, Nippon India MF and UTI MF.

Aditya Birla AMC is the country’s largest non-bank affiliated fund house in terms of assets under management (AUM) and fourth overall.