Infibeam IPO fully subscribed, institutional demand thin

MUMBAI (Reuters) - Indian online retailer Infibeam Incorporation's initial public offering (IPO) attracted thin demand from institutional investors, just selling the total number of shares on offer to raise about $67.32 million in the country's first e-commerce listing.

The company, which makes money through its e-commerce portal and also licenses technology for bricks-and-mortar chains to set up their own sales websites, received orders for about 13.8 million shares against the 10.4 million on offer at the higher end of the price range, stock exchange data showed.

"The issue is oversubscribed at the upper end of the price range across all categories," a spokesperson for the company said citing initial data from underwriters.

Demand for IPOs in India typically far exceeds the supply, and though high net-worth individuals and corporates were active bidders with orders worth 2.7 times the total number of shares reserved for them, institutional investors bid for just 1.02 percent of the shares reserved for them.

Although a comparatively small IPO, Infibeam's debut was widely expected to serve as a proxy for stock market investors' appetite for potential future offerings in the e-commerce sector, analysts and bankers said.

Flipkart and Snapdeal, India's two biggest e-commerce operators, have yet to make formal announcements on plans to go public, but bankers and insiders have said that both are considering a New York listing within the next two years.

(Reporting by Himank Sharma; Editing by David Goodman and David Evans)