Quess soars 59% on debut

The shares of human resource solutions provider Quess Corp ended 57 per cent higher during their stock market debut on Tuesday. Day One’s gains were the most by an initial public offer in 2016.

The shares closed at Rs 503, up 58 per cent over its issue price of Rs 317. It touched a high of Rs 508.6 and a low of Rs 480 on the BSE.

The stellar debut follows huge demand for Quess’ shares in its IPO, earlier this month. The company’s Rs 400-crore issue had witnessed a demand of 140 times the shares on offer.

“Investors are attracted towards new-age companies. Quess is a leader in the space it operates and has managed to grow at a very healthy rate. The high growth is one reason for the huge interest in the company,” said Ajay Saraf, executive director at ICICI Securities, one of the bankers to the issue.

Quess is promoted by Thomas Cook (India) and individual promoter Ajit Isaac. The shares of Thomas Cook ended nearly six per cent lower on Tuesday, despite Quess’ strong debut. Quess, which offers services in the recruitment segment, plans to use the IPO proceeds to fund its working capital requirements, repay debt and for inorganic growth.

TeamLease Services, a peer group which was listed in February, saw its shares gain 20 per cent over its issue price on debut. Of the 11 IPOs that have listed this year, eight have seen their share prices gain on debut. The average listing day gain for these 11 was around 11 per cent.

Shares of IPOs listed this year are up an average of 30 per cent over their issue price after listing. This has helped the primary market this year and buoy investor sentiment towards future IPOs, say bankers.