Sebi clears 3 IPOs; total approvals reach 17 this years

Markets regulator Sebi has in the past one week approved Initial Public Offerings of three companies that have plan to raise at least Rs 1,000 crore for business expansion and meeting working capital requirements.

With this, the number of firms receiving Sebi's green signal since the beginning of the year has reached 17. The three companies are Amar Ujala Publications, which publishes Hindi daily Amar Ujala; Infrastructure firm Dilip Buildcon and Kalpataru Power Transmission's subsidiary Shree Shubham Logistics.

They had filed draft papers with the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) in February and March. The regulator, last month, had given its nod to four companies to launch IPOs. However, these companies are yet to launch their public offers.

According to market experts, the IPO market is expected to see some activity in 2015 as a dozen companies have received approvals to float IPOs.

"Though overall sentiment in market is positive for equity issuances, we believe companies with strong fundamentals and right valuation will only be able to tap the capital markets," ICICI Securities Executive Director Ajay Saraf said.

Individually, the capital market watchdog has issued its final observations on the draft offer documents of Dilip Buildcon on June 1, Shree Shubham Logistics on June 2 and Amar Ujala on June 3, which is necessary for companies to launch any public offer.

As per the draft papers filed with Sebi, Dilip Buildcon's IPO would comprise fresh issue of equity shares worth up to Rs 650 crore and offer for sale of up to 1.49 crore equity shares by its existing shareholders.

Shree Shubham Logistics' proposed IPO comprises of fresh equity shares aggregating up to Rs 210 crore and an offer for sale of up to 70.07 lakh equity shares by its shareholder Tano India Private Equity Fund II. Amar Ujala's public offer consists of fresh issue of equity shares worth Rs 50 crore and an offer for sale of up to 26.90 lakh equity shares by existing shareholders.