Sterling & Wilson Solar IPO sails through with 92 pc subscription

The initial public offer of Shapoorji Pallonji group firm Sterling & Wilson Solar Ltd sailed through on Thursday with 92 per cent subscription that will raise around Rs 2,900 crore.

In a statement, the company said the issue was subscribed 92 per cent, with qualified investor portion getting fully subscribed even as retail portion remained under-subscribed due to tough market conditions.

Leading foreign players including Nomura, Schroeder, Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA) and Fidelity participated in the offer.

The IPO, through which the company plans to raise about Rs 3,125 crore, received bids for 1,89,32,835 shares against the total issue size of 2,21,77,418 shares, as per the NSE data till 1700 hours.

The price range for the offer was fixed at Rs 775-780 per share.

According to the statement, the IPO closed successfully, backed by marquee global institutional investors.

"Due to the recent market conditions and changes in the application process, the retail portion was not fully subscribed," it added.

The initial public offer of Sterling & Wilson Solar was subscribed 32 per cent on the second day of bidding on Wednesday.

The IPO comprises an offer for sale by promoters Shapoorji Pallonji and the company, aggregating up to Rs 2,083.33 crore and by Khurshed Yazdi Daruvala totalling Rs 1,041.67 crore.

On Monday, Sterling and Wilson Solar raised Rs 1,406 crore from 27 anchor investors.

The portion of the net proceeds would be utilised towards funding full repayment of the loans, the firm had said.

"As the issue is entirely an Offer for Sale and the QIB (Qualified Institutional Buyers) portion is 75 per cent, the basic requirement for the success of the same according to the Sebi regulations, is that the QIB portion should be fully subscribed.

"Hence, this OFS of Sterling and Wilson Solar is successfully subscribed with an overall 92 per cent subscription," the statement said.

ICICI Securities, Axis Capital, Credit Suisse Securities India, Deutsche Equities India, IIFL Securities, SBI Capital Markets, IndusInd Bank and YES Securities India are managing the offer.

Shares of Sterling and Wilson -- one of the largest solar engineering, procurement and construction solutions provider -- are proposed to be listed on the BSE and the NSE.