Central Bank prices IPO at Rs 102

MUMBAI: Central Bank of India has priced its initial public offer (IPO) at Rs 102 a share, the bank said in a statement late on Thursday. The bank had come out with an IPO for 80 million shares in July. The issue was subscribed 62 times, the bank said.

Simplex Projects debuts at Rs 323.75

MUMBAI: Simplex Projects listed on the stock exchanges with a 75% premium at Rs 323.75 as against its issue price of Rs 185 per share.

However, the scrip was not able to hold onto gains and slipped below Rs 300 mark. At 9:59 AM, the stock was at Rs 296 with volume traded at 7,12,943 shares on the BSE. On NSE, the stock was at Rs 275.30 with volume of 23,73,950 shares.

The company’s IPO received an overwhelming response. As per the NSE website, the issue was subscribed 85.53 times. It received bids for 25.65 crore shares including 5.04 crore shares at cut off price.

Read more in The Economic Times

Central Bank IPO fully subscribed on first day

The initial public offer (IPO) of Central Bank of India, expected to raise up to Rs 816 crore, has received good response from investors and got fully subscribed on the first day.

As per the data available on the bourses, the IPO of the public sector lender has received 13.61 crore bids for the eight crore shares on offer.

The price band for the issue, which opened and closes on July 27, has been fixed at Rs 85-102 per equity share. The bank has reserved four million shares for employees.

Post-issue, the governments shareholding in the bank would come down to 80.2 per cent. The issue would constitute 24.68 per cent of the pre-issue and 19.8 per cent of the post-issue paid-up equity capital of the bank.

Flag Tele listing on LSE soon

ADAG is expecting to recover ten times the value paid for buying the company in 2002.

Flag Telecom, a 100 per cent subsidiary of Reliance Communication (RComm), has mandated Goldman Sachs and Deutsche Bank as lead managers for the maiden initial public offering (IPO) on the London Stock Exchange.

Top sources say the bankers have valued the company at $2 billion. The IPO will be completed in the next three months. The company will divest 10-15 per cent of its equity through the IPO.

Through the IPO, the Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group (ADAG), will be able to recover virtually ten times the value it paid for the company in 2002. It had paid $211 million to buy Flag.

Flag, which runs an international fibre bandwidth all across the globe, has announced an investment of Rs 7,000 crore to set up a new generation network which will provide high speed transmission. The cash from the IPO will be used to partly finance the ambitious project which is expected to be up and running by 2009. The new network will link to the Mediterranean to Greece, Cyprus, Turkey, Malta, Libya and Lebanon, Trans-Pacific to the US and Japan, Far East and Africa.

The 65,000 km cable network connects 40 countries across four continents and has over 200 international telcos and Internet service providers (ISPs) as its clients.

Flag has also recently completed Falcon, a $400 million fibre project which links West Asia to the rest of the world.

Flag Telecom is the second company of the Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group after Reliance Energy which is being listed on the London Stock Exchange. Over 25 Indian companies are already listed on LSE which include ACC, Amtek Auto, Crompton Greaves, GAIL just to name a few.

A Reliance Communications spokesperson, however, declined to comment on the issue.

Sebi okays short selling by institutions

The Securities & Exchange Board of India (Sebi) today tightened the norms for initial public offerings (IPOs) by real estate companies, while allowing short selling of equities by institutional investors, including FIIs.
It also made grading mandatory for all IPOs and waived the requirement of minimum public holding post-IPO for public sector companies and institutions.

The stock market regulator said real estate companies looking to tap the market must show the current value of their landholding, which should only include land actually owned by them.

A large number of real estate companies have lined up IPOs. Many have computed the value of their land on basis of what they expect the price to be when the projects are completed.

When approached for comments on Securities & Exchange Board of India’s directive, a senior executive with Delhi-based DLF said, “This will work to our advantage. The cost of land has been escalating and we will now be able to do the valuation at today’s prices.”

DLF has been awaiting Sebi’s permission to float an IPO that is estimated to garner Rs 13,600 crore, more than any issue so far.

Read more at Business Standard

SEBI makes IPO grading mandatory

Market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) on Thursday made it mandatory for companies planning initial public offers to get rated by agencies and tightened disclosures for real estate IPOs.

The two decisions could affect some high-profile IPOs being planned by big developers, bankers said.

"The grading of IPOs will come into effect immediatly," SEBI Chairman M Damodaran said. "The fees to be paid for grading of IPO would be paid by companies," he said.

Read more at The Financial Express

Sebi to allow short-selling by institutions

Sebi chairman M Damodaran said in Mumbai this evening that the board, which met today, has approved a proposal to allow short-selling by institutions.

The board also approved a proposal for mandatory grading of IPOs, which will be reviewed periodically.

On real estate IPOs, Damodaran said land bank details should be accompanied by ownership status, and valuations should be based on current prices.

On delisting via the book-building process, Damodaran said a final decision on the issue would be taken at the next board meeting scheduled in May.

Orbit Corp to raise Rs 106 cr from IPO

Real estate company Orbit Corporation plans to raise up to Rs 106 crore from its initial public offering (IPO) opening on March 20 to part fund its existing and new projects.

"We expect to raise between Rs 100-110 crore from our IPO and would use the proceeds to part fund our existing and proposed projects in Mumbai," Orbit Corporation Head Finance and Strategies Ramashrya Yadav told reporters here today.

Based on the upper-end of its price band the company would raise around Rs 106.47 crore.

The company is offering 91 lakh equity shares of face value Rs 10 each with a price band of Rs 108-117. The offer would open on March 20 and would close on March 23.

Orbit would also issue one detachable warrant with each equity share and the investor would have the option of converting the warrant into an equity share after 18 months of the issue date, Yadav said.

Read more at Economic Times

Realty firms' IPOs under Sebi scanner

Market regulator Sebi seems to be concerned about the spate of real-estate company IPOs on the market, reports CNBC-TV18.Sebi seems to be worried about property public issues. Sources say it has stalled several IPOs from real estate firms apparently because it is concerned by the number of such companies floating issues. Sources say Sebi questioned many companies regarding the valuation of development rights and the their land banks. Sebi is also learned to be scrutinising their financials.

Some of the delayed issues are from companies such as DLF, HDIL, Orbit and IVR Prime, a subsidiary of IVRCL Infrastructure.

The Reserve Bank also attempted to cool the real-estate market by increasing the risk weightage for developer loans last year.To top it all, rising home loan rates have slowed disbursals in the past few months and property companies are feeling the pinch. Most real estate counters have been hit in the past few months and many new listings are trading below their issue prices.

That's probably why SEBI seems to be advocating caution and is in no hurry to clear dozens of IPO applications pending before it.