At least a dozen investment banks have thrown their hat into the ring to manage the proposed Rs 10,000 crore initial public offering (IPO) of NTPC Green Energy Ltd, the renewables subsidiary of state-owned power producer NTPC Ltd, sources aware of the development told Moneycontrol.
The company had earlier this month issued a request for proposal (RFP) to appoint merchant bankers for the proposed IPO. Final bids for the right to manage the IPO came in last Friday, sources said.
Among the dozen or so bidders are domestic investment banks such as SBI Capital, ICICI Securities, Axis Capital, DAM Capital and Nuvama, the sources said. A couple of foreign investment banks have also bid for the IPO mandate, they added, with a few more domestic banks in the fray.
The winning bidders are likely to be declared by next week or later, sources said.
Also read: NTPC Green Energy in process of appointing merchant bankers for IPO, says CEO
“The IPO proceeds will be used to fund the ongoing and future capex plans of the company, across solar energy and green hydrogen and green ammonia,” one of the sources cited above said.
Emails sent to NTPC Green, SBI Capital, ICICI Securities, Axis Capital, DAM Capital and Nuvama did not elicit a response.
NTPC Green was incorporated in April 2022 as a wholly owned subsidiary of NTPC Ltd for consolidation of the parent's specific renewable energy assets.
The PSU was earlier planning to sell a 20% stake in NTPC Green to a strategic investor and Malaysian energy major. Petronas had emerged as the highest bidder for the stake sale with an offer of $460 million. However, the company later decided against the stake sale.
NTPC Green project pipeline
In an interview with CNBC TV18 on Tuesday, Mohit Bhargava, CEO of NTPC Green Energy, said that the company’s aim is to go to the market with an initial public offering in the next fiscal year.
Bhargava also added that NTPC Green is working on a pipeline of just under 25-26 GW, of which about 8 GW is under construction.
On January 30, NTPC Green signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Maharashtra government for development of green hydrogen and derivatives such as green ammonia and green methanol capacity of up to 1 million tonnes per annum, including pumped storage projects of 2 GW and development of renewable energy projects with or without storage up to 5 GW. The agreement envisages a potential investment of approximately Rs 80,000 crore.
Public sector IPOs
At a size of Rs 10,000 crore, NTPC Green’s IPO will be the biggest PSU initial share sale since the Rs 21,000 crore IPO of Life Insurance Corp of India in May 2022.
The proposed NTPC Green IPO follows the Rs 2,150 crore share sale of Indian Renewable Energy Development Agency (IREDA), a state-owned entity that finances development of renewable energy projects, in November 2023.
The IREDA offer was subscribed 38.8 times.
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