Ahead of IPO, Anupam Rasayan raises Rs 225 cr from anchor investors

Speciality chemical company Anupam Rasayan on Wednesday raised Rs 225 crore from anchor investors, ahead of its initial share-sale, which will open for public subscription on Friday.

It has been decided to allocate 40,48,647 shares to 15 anchor investors at Rs 555 per share, which is the upper band of the initial public offer. At this price, the company has mopped-up Rs 225 crore, according to a circular uploaded on BSE website.

The anchor book saw participation from multiple pools of capital, including foreign portfolio investors, domestic mutual funds, insurance companies and alternative investment funds. Also, the book saw participation from investors across the globe, including India, Asia, the UK and the US.

Among the 15 anchor investors are AdityaBirla Sunlife Mutual Fund (MF), Nomura Funds Ireland Public Ltd Company, Fidelity International, Sundaram MF, SBI Life Insurance Co, IIFL Special Opportunities Fund, Malabar Select Fund and Max Life Insurance Co.

The IPO aggregating up to Rs 760 crore is an entirely fresh issuance of equity shares and proceeds of the issue would be mainly used to pay the debt.

The company has fixed a price band of Rs 553-555 a share for its Rs 760-crore initial share-sale, which will open for public subscription on March 12 and close on March 16.

The Surat-based company has reserved about 2.20 lakh shares for employees. Half of the issue is reserved for qualified institutional buyers, 35 per cent for retail investors, 15 per cent for non-institutional bidders.

Anupam Rasayan commenced operations in 1984 with conventional products and now it makes speciality chemicals that involve multi-step synthesis and complex chemistries.

It has six multi-purpose manufacturing facilities based in Gujarat with a combined aggregate installed capacity of around 23,396 metric tonne, of which 6,726 metric tonne was added in March 2020.

The company mainly caters to the agrochemical, personal care and pharmaceutical sectors, which accounted for over 95 per cent of its revenues in 2019-20. Its clients include Syngenta Asia Pacific, Sumitomo Chemical Company and UPL Limited.

The company's revenue from operations increased by 45 per cent to Rs 539.22 crore in the nine months ended December 31, 2020, from Rs 371.80 crore in the year-ago period.

Axis Capital, Ambit Private, IIFL Securities and JM Financial are merchant bankers for the issue.

The company, which filed preliminary papers for the IPO with the regulator in December, obtained its go-ahead in February.