Indian cos making a beeline for LSE listing

The number of enquiries from Indian companies keen get listed on the London Stock Exchange (LSE) is on the rise, a senior LSE official said here today.

LSE Head of Primary Markets-India Ibukun Adebayo said the trend has been continuing for the past nine months as the economic situation across the world is looking better, pushing more acquisitions and mergers.

"The LSE has been working on a plan to woo Indian non-IT companies to get listed on it," Adebayo said, adding currently out of the 650 companies listed on the exchange from 70 countries, about 20 are from India.

However, he refused to divulge the names of Indian firms that are in the process of getting listed on LSE but said about seven are actively working to get listed and two of them are likely to get listed shortly.

According to Alan Mackenzie of Religare Hichens Harrison, three of their customers are in the final stages of listing and would be raising $250 million through LSE listing. "These Indian companies are involved in power generation, mining and renewable energy," said Mackenzie.

According to these officials, the LSE does not impose any restrictions on the size of the fund mop-up.

Adebayo said while the larger issuers are encouraged to take either premium (shares) or GDR listings on the exchange’s main market, the smaller issuers recommended through the AIM platform.

So far, the largest Indian premium listing on the LSE is Vedanta’s $1 billion issue in 2003 and the largest GDR listing is Tata Steel’s $500 million issue in 2009.