Bajaj Finance sets base price for Rs 8,800-crore QIP at Rs 7,250 per share

Bajaj Finance has set the base price for its Rs 8,800 crore qualified institutional placement (QIP) at Rs 7,250 per share, said investment banking sources.

The base price is nearly 4 per cent lower than the floor price of Rs 7,534 as per the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) formula and also the last close. Shares of Bajaj Finance last closed at Rs 7,560, up 1.9 per cent.

The non-banking financial company (NBFC) behemoth will issue 12.1 million new shares in the QIP, which will result in a dilution of 2 per cent. The fresh capital will be used by Bajaj Finance for the repayment of loans and for general corporate purposes.

BofA Securities, Morgan Stanley, JM Financial, and Citigroup Global Markets are the investment banks handling the share sale.

Sources said the QIP has seen strong demand from large institutional investors, both foreign and domestic.

Bajaj Finance’s board on October 5 had approved a fundraise of Rs 8,800 crore through the QIP route. It also approved a preferential allotment to parent company Bajaj Finserv. On November 1, 2023, the company approved the issue of 1.5 million warrants to Bajaj Finserv at Rs. 7,670 apiece.

This is the fourth fundraising by Bajaj Finance by way of QIP in the last eight years. Previously, it had raised Rs 8,500 crore in November 2019, and before that Rs 4,500 crore in September 2017 and Rs 1,400 crore in June 2015.

Earlier, in October, Bajaj Finance announced a 28 per cent growth in net profit during the July-September quarter of financial year 2024 to Rs 3,550.8 crore, up from Rs 2,780.7 crore in the July-September quarter of FY23, supported by healthy growth in net interest income (NII).

The NII for the reported quarter improved by 26 per cent to Rs 8,845 crore from Rs 7,002 crore in the same period a year ago.

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