Though the initial public offering of Bharti Infratel subscribed fully, retail investors, both high net worth individuals (HNIs) and small investors were lukewarm to the issue.
The Rs 4,500-crore initial public offering by Bharti Infratel, the tower arm of the country’s largest telecom operator Bharti Airtel, was subscribed 1.3 times.
However, the HNI portion was subscribed by 10 per cent and the retail segment by just 6 per cent only, according to data on the exchanges. The qualified institutional buyers (QIBs) portion, which closed on Thursday, was subscribed 2.8 times.
At the upper end of the price band, Bharti Infratel will raise about Rs 4,533.60 crore and at the lower end it could end up with Rs 3,966.90 crore.
Anchor support
On Monday, a day before its opening, Bharti Infratel had received Rs 651.7 crore from 18 anchor investors, including Morgan Stanley and Sundaram MF. The company had allocated 2.83 crore shares or 15 per cent of the issue size at Rs 230 a piece.
Bharti Infratel had fixed the price band at Rs 210-240 a share for the initial stake sale to public, which had opened on December 11.
DSP Merrill Lynch, JP Morgan India, Standard Chartered Securities (India) and UBS Securities India were the joint book-running lead managers, while the issue was managed by Barclays Securities (India), Deutsche Equities India, Enam Securities, HSBC Securities and Capital Markets (India) and Kotak Mahindra Capital Company.
Bharti Infratel is the second tower company in the country, after GTL Infrastructure, to tap the capital markets with an IPO.
The Sunil Bharti Mittal led-company's IPO is the biggest public issue in the last two years, after state-run Coal India's raised Rs 15,200 crore in 2010. The tower company intends to use the IPO proceeds to fund its expansion and acquisitions.
However, Bharti Airtel, which owns about 86 per cent of Bharti Infratel, is not participating in the share sale.