Investors get drawn towards SME IPOs

Some IPOs like that of Focus Lightings were oversubscribed by 89% in last FY

While large size IPOs are getting improved responses from investors, with some over subscribing two to four times on the main platforms of Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) and National Stock Exchange (NSE), SME IPOs are not lagging behind either. According to the investment bankers, investors' trust on small companies has increased in recent times and as a result many SME IPOs have seen over subscription by almost 85 times.

Jaimin Shah, managing director of Ahmedabad-based Dev Information Technology Limited never expected that the company's IPO will be oversubscribed by 74.17 times on BSE SME platform.

Shah said, "As against the IPO size of Rs 6.25 crore, the company received over Rs 463 crore. We never expected such great response from investors. On the last day our IPO was subscribed by 74.17 per cent. We are going to use the funds to expand our network in India and overseas."

On BSE SME platform 178 companies have been listed so far and market capitalisation crossing Rs 18,000 crore. As against 50 companies in 2015-16 listing, 77 companies have listed during 2016-17. Fund raising also increased from about Rs 311 crore to Rs 807 crore during the said period.

"We witness a new trend of over subscription emerging for SME IPOs. We are receiving increasing participation from treasuries, wealth houses and large brokerages. Even we received foreign institutional participation in Bohra Industries. Such participation further endorses growing popularity of SME markets," said Mahavir Lunawat, managing director of Pantomath Capital, lead manager.

Udaipur-based Bohra Industries Limited has garnered an amazing subscription of more than Rs 80 crores on NSE Emerge. The IPO was subscribed 3.23 times of total shares offered.

BSE also believes that the way investors are taking interest in small companies, number of listings on SME platforms will increase in coming months.

Ajay Thakur, head, BSE SME said, "This is all because market has seen improvement in performance of small companies. We are expecting that by end of June this year listing on BSE SME will touch 200 companies."

According to the analysts, institutional investment in SME IPO has gone up and post listing performance of the companies also encourage overall investments in small companies.

"It took some time to build attraction as the platform was completely new and even companies also had not taken interest in the initial years. But now, strong background SMEs are entering in the equity market through SME platforms which attracts the investors," said Pranav Haldea, managing director of Prime Database.