Bharti Hexacom set to start trading after country's biggest IPO in a year

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By Filipe Pacheco and Ashutosh Joshi

Telecom service provider Bharti Hexacom Ltd. is set to start trading in Mumbai after an initial public offering that raised Rs 4,275 crore ($514 million) to become India’s largest in about a year.
 

Shareholder Telecommunications Consultants India Ltd. sold 75 million shares in the company at Rs 570 apiece last week, the top of a marketed range. The offering drew bids for more than 30 times the number of shares on offer. Trading begins at around 10 a.m. local time on Friday. 

Bharti Hexacon’s IPO is the country’s largest since Mankind Pharma Ltd. raised Rs 4,330 crore a year ago. A strong start could help open a window for more large deals in India, dubbed by bankers as one of the hottest spots for first-time share sales in Asia this year.

“Bharti Hexacom is well-positioned to capitalize on the evolving market trends and consumer preferences,” said Rajan Shinde, Mumbai-based analyst at Mehta Equities Ltd.

The offering may further boost activity in the equities market that has mainly been hosting IPOs smaller than $100 million in size over the past year. Those share sales drew a strong response from retail investors and surged after listing, drawing scrutiny by regulators concerned about market froth.  

In the past 12 months through Wednesday, only two offerings in India raised more than $500 million. 

Companies that went public in India over the past five years after IPOs larger than $500 million rose 7.5 per cent on average on their first trading day, according to Bloomberg-compiled data. That compares with a 32 per cent increase for similar listings in Asia Pacific over the same period.  

Bharti Hexacom, a unit of Bharti Airtel Ltd., provides fixed-line telephone and broadband services in two circles in India that make up about 7 per cent of industry customers, according to the prospectus. 

SBI Capital Markets, Axis Capital, BOB Capital Markets, ICICI Securities and IIFL Securities are the lead managers to the sale.