ICICI Prudential AMC IPO sees strong demand from Prashant Jain, Madhu Kela, global giants, domestic MFs

ICICI Prudential Asset Management Company

ICICI Prudential Asset Management Company attracted some of the largest domestic and global investors in the market for its anchor book as well as its private placement round. The fund house saw strong participation from top mutual fund houses, sovereign wealth funds, global asset managers, major insurers, and several well-known market veterans, highlighting the demand for the issue, which will debut at a Rs 1.07 lakh crore valuation.

ICICI Prudential Asset Management Company raised Rs 3,022 crore from 149 anchor investors on December 11. Of the total allocation to anchor investors, 46.62 lakh equity shares, or 33.4 percent of the anchor book, were allotted to 27 domestic mutual funds.

These included HDFC AMC, SBI Mutual Fund, WhiteOak Capital, Helios, Kotak Mahindra AMC, Axis MF, Aditya Birla Sun Life AMC, DSP MF, Quant Mutual Fund, HSBC MF, Invesco, Edelweiss, and PGIM, the company said in its exchange filing.

Further, marquee global investors that participated in the anchor book included Capital Group, the Monetary Authority of Singapore, Temasek, CLSA Global, Fidelity, JP Morgan, the Government Pension Fund Global, BlackRock, Goldman Sachs, Amundi Funds, Prudential Assurance Company, the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, Integrated Core Strategies Asia, and Societe Generale.

Insurance companies also took some positions, with Life Insurance Corporation, HDFC Pension Fund, SBI Pension Fund, SBI Life, Tata AIA Life, HDFC Life, Bajaj General Insurance, Canara HSBC Life, Future Generali India, Go Digit, and Reliance General subscribing to 16.9 lakh shares worth Rs 366 crore.

Ahead of the anchor allocation, the company, in consultation with the book-running lead managers, completed a private placement of 22,240,841 equity shares at an issue price of Rs 2,165 per share.

This round saw participation from Lunate Capital, the estate of the late Rakesh Jhunjhunwala, The Regents of the University of California – IIFL Asset Management, Sarv Investments, 3P India Equity Fund (managed by Prashant Jain), PI Opportunities Fund II, 360One Funds, DSP India Fund, WhiteOak Capital India Opportunities Fund, HCL Capital, and individual investors such as Manish Chokani and Madhusudan Kela, among others.

Insurance companies including SBI Life Insurance Company, HDFC Life Insurance Company, Kotak Life Insurance Company, Aditya Birla Sun Life Insurance Company, Bajaj Life Insurance Company, Tata AIG General Insurance Company, and Go Digit General Insurance also participated in the private placement. ICICI Bank invested Rs 2,140 crore for an additional two percent stake in the asset management company.

ICICI Prudential Asset Management Company had appointed a record 18 merchant bankers for its IPO, the highest for any Indian public issue in recent times, setting a new benchmark in India’s primary market.

While the Rs 10,000-crore issue’s size and brand prestige drew strong interest from merchant bankers, the company also wanted to accommodate as many as possible due to long-standing relationships, say industry insiders. However, this expansion comes at no additional cost: under the issue structure, only four bankers will earn fees, but all 18 get league table credit, which is a valuable currency in the investment banking world.

In such multi-bank deals, each banker is assigned a subscription quota and grouped into tiers based on their responsibilities. Tier-1 bankers coordinate allocations and institutional bids, while others focus on different investor segments to ensure broad distribution and participation.

"Issuers may want to appoint larger number of banks to ensure a wider and deeper reach among different investor segments: retail, domestic institutional, foreign institutional, and within foreign different geographies. Merchant bankers are also sometimes appointed on the basis of the overall relationship which the issuer has with the bank. 3 to 5 bankers in total can generally handle the core job. Beyond that, it’s often about distribution and relationship," added Haldea.