ICICI Securities reduces IPO to Rs 35 billion due to sluggish response

ICICI Securities on Monday reduced the size of its initial public offer to little over Rs 35 billion after the sale elicited a sluggish response, especially from high networth individuals.

The share sale of the leading brokerage firm -- which was to raise up to Rs 40.16 billion -- received around 88 per cent subscription, including the anchor portion, on the last day on Monday.

In a statement, ICICI Securities said it has "successfully closed its proposed Offer for Sale (OFS) and raised around Rs 35 billion".

This indicates that the size of the initial public offer -- the fourth one from the ICICI Group -- has been reduced in the wake of sluggish response.

Data available with the exchanges till 1945 hours showed that the offer was subscribed 78 per cent, excluding the anchor portion.

It received bids for 3,46,75,396 shares against the total issue size of 4,42,25,343 shares (without anchor portion), according to the NSE data.

The Qualified Institutional Buyers (QIBs) quota was subscribed 1.04 times, non institutional investors 35 per cent and retail investors 88 per cent, according to the BSE data.

Originally, as many as 77,249,508 shares, including anchor portion of 33,024,165 shares, was on offer. The IPO opened on March 22.

The price band for the offer has been fixed at Rs 519-520 per share.

While announcing that the offer was closed at around Rs 35 billion, the statement also said, "Earlier, the OFS attracted a strong response from anchor investors raising around Rs 17.17 billion on March 21, 2018. The QIB portion was fully subscribed".

The company last week raised Rs 17.17 billion from anchor investors.

DSP Merrill Lynch, ICICI Securities, Citigroup Global Markets India, CLSA India, Edelweiss Financial Services, IIFL Holdings and SBI Capital Markets managed the issue.

In recent times, a substantial number of IPOs have hit the market, with many of them eliciting good response from investors.