Mah Holidays IPO priced at Rs 300/sh, to list in 21 days

Here is a verbatim transcript of the exclusive interview with Arun Nanda on CNBC-TV18. Also see the accompanying video.

Q: Did you just as a gesture of goodwill leave Rs 25 on the table for investors?

A: Although our book was more than seven times oversubscribed at the upper end, we left it primarily for retail investors because they need to make some money in the market.

Q: How did the nine times oversubscription break up by way of retail and HNI?

A: The oversubscription was 9.8 times. The QIB book was 12 times oversubscribed. High networth individuals was a little over a 10 times oversubscribed and retail was little over 3.3 times oversubscribed. So, all buckets were totally oversubscribed. But what was more heartening was that the upper end of the book was more than seven times oversubscribed.

Q: When do you list?

A: We should list 21 days from today. I think we have got a good set of investment bankers like Kotak and HSBC, so we should list. I think your readers should be very happy because we have left quite a lot on the table purely as a goodwill gesture.

Q: We were wondering if you could have gone all the way down to Rs 275 and left some more?

A: There are two ways to look at it. We could have done it at Rs 325 and still people would have got one tenth of the allocation, but we did it purely for goodwill. I think people should be happy. If you look at out book, we really have some very high quality investors and that was very satisfying for me.

Q: Who would be the top five allottees?

A: I really do not know whether I can give you names but there are two large insurance companies which are nearly at one time book. All the top mutual fund ‑ both domestic and international fund ‑ that you can think of are there. On the high networth individuals, we were 11 times oversubscribed at the top end. I have been in this business for a long time and understand the value of quality of books. As I said that for a QIB there was no need for us to do it. We did it purely for retail investors. I talked about it and we felt that we should leave something for the retail investor. 

Q: Two large global insurance companies?

A: No. They have local tie-up. I must confess that I must give you part of the credit. In fact, the investors should give you part of the credit. Although I argued with you, I think you had that perception in mind that we should do something for retail investors. I must confess that you were on the top of my mind when I was agonizing whether it is Rs 300 or Rs 325.