Equitas Holdings mops up Rs 652 cr from anchor investors

Ahead of the initial share sale tomorrow, Equitas Holdings has raised Rs 652 crore from anchor investors by selling shares at a price of Rs 110 apiece.

The 15 anchor investors include Franklin Templeton MF, SBI MF, HDFC Standard Life Insurance, Birla Sun Life Trustee, ICICI Prudential MF, Sundaram MF, Tata AIA Life Insurance and Reliance Life Insurance.

The first initial public offering in the current fiscal, the company will hit the capital market tomorrow to raise up to Rs 2,200 crore.

Equitas Holdings, with a licence for a small finance bank, has fixed the price band at Rs 109-110 per share. The initial share sale programme will close on April 7.

The company will allot 5.93 crore shares to anchor investors at Rs 110 apiece, the upper end of the price band, raising a little over Rs 652 crore, according to a filing made to the exchanges.

The allocation was finalised by the company's IPO committee during its meeting today.

Equitas' IPO comprises fresh issue of shares aggregating Rs 720 crore and an offer for sale of up to 132,425,884 equity shares by existing shareholders, including P N Vasudevan, MD, and private equity stakeholders.

These include the International Finance Corporation, Nederlandse Financierings, Aavishkaar Goodwell India Microfinance Development Company, Sequoia Capital India, Westbridge Ventures and Helion Venture Partners.

The IPO will bring down the company's foreign holding from the present 93 per cent to 35 percent. As per the norms, foreign shareholding should be below 49 per cent to operate as a small finance bank.

Funds generated from the fresh issue will be used to develop IT infrastructure for the new bank and lending purposes, among others.

The Chennai-based Equitas Holdings in September 2015 had received in-principle approval from the Reserve Bank to set up a small finance bank to provide basic banking services to small farmers and micro industries.

Axis Capital, ICICI Securities, HSBC and Edelweiss Financial Services are managing the company's IPO.