Bajaj Housing Finance IPO generates interest from all category of investors

The initial public offering from the Bajaj group, Bajaj Housing Finance, was well received by all category of investors on Day 1 itself. The IPO has been subscribed 2.02 times overall so far. It was subscribed within a few hours of opening on Monday.

 The ₹6,560-crore IPO comes at a price band of ₹66-70. Interestingly, QIBs, who play a waiting game till the last day, were active on Day 1 itself, and the portion reserved for them was subscribed 1.07 times. NIIs and the retail investors’ portion was subscribed 4.35 times and 1.51 times, respectively.

The IPO comprises a fresh issue of equity shares of up to ₹3,560 crore and an offer-for-sale (OFS) worth ₹3,000 crore by parent Bajaj Finance. The IPO closes on September 11. The minimum lot size for an application is 214 shares.

The Bajaj Housing Finance IPO has reserved up to 50 per cent for qualified institutional buyers (QIB), not less than 15 per cent for non-institutional Institutional Investors (NII) and not less than 35 per cent has been reserved for retail investors. The company has reserved 3.03 crore shares for employees and another 7.6 crore shares under the shareholders’ quota. Those who held Bajaj Finance or Bajaj Finserv shares on the Bajaj Housing Finance IPO RHP filing date can apply under the shareholder quota. 

While the shareholders’ quota was subscribed 2.90 times, the employee portion was somewhat muted at 0.32 times.

As part of the IPO exercise, Bajaj Housing Finance on Friday mopped up ₹1,758 crore from anchor investors by allotting 25.11 crore shares to 104 funds at ₹70 apiece. Among the investors were the Government of Singapore, New World Fund Inc, Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, Fidelity, Morgan Stanley, Nomura, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan India Investment Trust Plc, Capital Group, SBI Life Insurance Company, ICICI Prudential Life Insurance Company, HDFC Mutual Fund (MF), Kotak Mahindra MF, SBI MF, UTI MF and Nippon India MF.

The fresh capital raised will likely support the company’s growth plans, enhance its capital base, and provide resources to meet future business needs. The IPO is also due to Reserve Bank of India‘s (RBI’s) regulations, which require upper-layer non-banking financial companies (NBFCs) to be listed on the stock exchanges by September 2025.

Bajaj Housing Finance is a non-deposit-taking housing finance company registered with the National Housing Bank since September 2015. It offers financial solutions for purchasing and renovating residential and commercial properties. It has been identified and categorised as an “upper layer” NBFC by the RBI in India, and its comprehensive mortgage products include home loans, loans against property, lease rental discounting and developer financing.

For 2023-24, the company posted a net profit of ₹1,731 crore, up 38 per cent from ₹1,258 crore in FY23.

The Bajaj Housing Finance IPO book-runners are Kotak Mahindra Capital Company Ltd, Bofa Securities India Ltd, Axis Capital Ltd, Goldman Sachs (India) Securities Private Ltd, SBI Capital Markets Ltd, Jm Financial Ltd, and IIFL Securities Ltd.