Jhunjhunwala-backed Baazar Style Retail IPO sees 0.72 times subscription on day 1, retail book bought 0.66x

Baazar Style Retail IPO

The initial public offering of Baazar Style Retail, the fashion retailer, has received tepid response from investors on the first day of bidding, i.e. August 30 despite positive market conditions. The IPO saw a 0.72 times subscription with investors buying 1.08 crore equity shares against the offer size of 1.5 crore equity shares, the bids data on the exchanges showed.

The Rekha Rakesh Jhunjhunwala-backed company targets to mop up Rs 834.68 crore through its maiden public issue. The IPO is a mix of fresh issue of shares worth Rs 148 crore, and an offer-for-sale of 1.76 crore equity shares worth Rs 686.68 crore by investors and promoters.

The price band for the issue, which closes on September 3, has been fixed at Rs 370-389 per share.

Retail investors were at the leading position to support the issue, buying 0.82 times the allotted quota, followed by non-institutional investors (high networth individuals) who picked 0.47 times the reserved portion, while the qualified institutional buyers bid 0.7 times the part set aside for them.

Also read: Baazar Style Retail IPO: Does this retailer offer value for investors?

Employees, who had reservation of Rs 1 crore worth shares in the IPO, showed strong interest, buying 6.01 times the reserved portion. They will get these shares at a discount of Rs 35 per share to the final issue price.

Before the issue opening, on August 29, the Kolkata-based company already mobilised Rs 250.1 crore from 22 anchor investors including Societe Generale, Natixis International Funds, Volrado Venture Partners Fund, HSBC Global Investment Funds, Allianz Global Investors Fund, HDFC Mutual Fund, Whiteoak Capital, Ashoka India Equity Investment Trust Plc, Motilal Oswal Mutual Fund, Helios Flexi Cap Fund, and Julius Baer India Equity Fund.

The Style Bazaar operator that competes with V2 Retail, and V-Mart Retail intends to use net fresh issue funds primarily for repaying debt, and general corporate purposes.

Till March 2024, it had operated business through 162 stores in 146 cities.

Baazar Style Retail is backed by several investors such as Rekha Rakesh Jhunjhunwala, Kewal Kiran Clothing, Manohar Lal Agarwal (promoter of Haldiram Snacks), Intensive Softshare, D K Surana, Ajay Kumar Jain and Sanjay Kumar Jain.