Astron Paper makes strong debut; stock zooms 141% against issue price

The stock locked in upper circuit at Rs 120.75, up 141% against its issue price of Rs 50 per share on the National Stock Exchange.

Astron Paper & Board Mill made a stellar debut and was locked in upper circuit at Rs 120.75, up 141% against its issue price of Rs 50 per share on the National Stock Exchange (NSE). On BSE, it froze at Rs 120 with no sellers seeing on the counter.

The stock of paper manufacturer listed at Rs 115 on the NSE and at Rs 114 on the BSE. Till 10:11 AM; a combined 6.11 million shares changed hands and there were pending buy orders for 315,927 shares on the both the exchanges.

The stock is trading under trade-to-trade (T2T) or T segment in which no intra-day trading is allowed for shares falling in that segment, as each trade results in delivery. Transactions placed in this segment have to be mandatorily settled on gross basis i.e. by taking or giving delivery even if you have bought and sold the shares during the same settlement cycle.

The Rs 70-crore initial public offer (IPO) got an overwhelming response from the investors and got subscribed by 243.29 times. The issue received bids for 3406 million shares against the total issue size of 14 million shares.

The qualified institutional buyers (QIBs) portion got oversubscribed 103 times, non institutional investors 397 times and retail investors 78 times, BSE data shows.

Astron Paper intends to utilize the net proceeds from this public issue towards the setting up of additional facility for manufacturing of lower GSM and lower B.F kraft paper, part repayment of unsecured loan, funding the working capital requirements and general corporate purposes.