Maheshwari Logistics SME IPO garners Rs 123-cr subscription

The initial public offer of Maheshwari Logistics has garnered a whopping subscription of Rs 123 crore, making it the second highest share sale of a small and medium enterprise (SME).
The issue, which was subscribed 4.53 times of total shares offered, witnessed huge participation of both retail and non-retail investors, including corporates and HNIs.
The IPO came with a public offering of 39,96,000 equity shares at a price of Rs 68 per equity share on Emerge platform of NSE.
Prior to that, SME IPO of Agro Phos India over subscribed more than 17 times and garnered record break subscription of Rs 200 crore, while Madhya Bharat Agro Products witnessed a subscription of Rs 103 crore.

"Maheshwari Logistics IPO continued the trend and garnered whopping amount of around Rs 123 crores with huge participation from retail and non retail investors. This is also an indication of growing popularity of SME Capital Market in India," Pantomath Group Managing Director Mahavir Lunawat said.
Maheshwari Logistics is engaged in providing logistics services, supply of non-coking coal, manufacturing of kraft paper and trading in a variety of papers.

The SME capital market platform was launched in 2012 by BSE and NSE. Since then, 197 companies have been listed on Indian SME bourses.
"The increasing trend of huge participation in SME markets is a sign of the huge potential such companies inhibit and the confidence of investors in them. With increased participation, SME markets have also gradually evolved in terms of mix of investors," Lunawat said.

The recent IPOs such as Nandani Creations, Commercial Syn Bags, Valiant Organics, Agro Phos India have witnessed participation from various institutional investors like Union Bank and Reliance MF.
The secondary market has also reaffirmed confidence of institutional investors in SME Companies with DSP Rock participating in Ashapura and SIDBI participating in Momai Apparels.
"SME Exchange has successfully transited itself from being an alternative investment platform to being a parallel investment platform for capital market investors," he added.