Local banks top IPO league table in 2015

Local investment banks dominated in initial public offerings (IPOs) during 2015 when a healthy pipeline of issues hit the market.

Kotak Mahindra Bank topped the charts with nine issues and a market share of 13.6 per cent, according to Bloomberg. Axis Bank came in second followed by Citi, Edelweiss Financial Services and JPMorgan. ICICI Securities and IDFC Capital were the other local investment banks that made it to the top 10.

"We realised the importance of being part of a larger global platform and continued to invest in the business in the past four years," said V Jayasankar, senior executive director, Kotak Investment Banking.

Several foreign investment banks, on the other hand, scaled down operations in the past few years.

"There was a clear demand-supply mismatch, and many companies were waiting to raise money. We caught the trend early," said Dharmesh Mehta, managing director and chief executive officer, Axis Capital. "Our strong institutional franchise also proved to be a big help," he added.

Indian companies are now more confident about the execution skills of local banks. "Earlier, there was a perception that only foreign investment bankers could attract overseas money. That is no longer the case," said Mehta.

Indian investment banks were preferred by issuers of up to Rs 1,000 crore, observed Prithvi Haldea, chairman of IPO tracker Prime Database. "Even for large issues, the dependence on foreign banks has come down," he added.

Haldea clarified that foreign banks were still in demand because they brought in a wider network of investors.

The IPO market saw revival after four years, with 21 issues collectively raising Rs 13,600 crore in 2015, according to Prime Database.

Nineteen companies had anchor investors that collectively subscribed to 30 per cent of the total public issue amount. Indian institutional investors played a significant role as anchor investors, with their subscription amounting to 13 per cent of the amount, compared to 16 per cent by foreign institutional investors.

Another notable feature of the year was that several companies that hit the market had prior investment from venture capital. Offers for sale by private equity firms and venture capitalists accounted for 14 per cent of the total IPO amount.

Seven IPOs were subscribed between 14 times (Inox Wind) and 53 times (VRL Logistics). The largest IPO was from Interglobe Aviation for Rs 3,017 crore, while the average deal size was Rs 648 crore.

The year 2016 is expected to be good for the IPO market, especially the second half. Twenty companies wanting to raise Rs 7,315 crore have approvals and another 11 companies wanting to raise Rs 5,445 crore are awaiting clearance.

"As Alkem Laboratories and Dr Lal PathLabs have shown, there will be appetite for credible companies that are priced right," said Mehta.