The Initial Public Offer (IPO) of transportation and logistics company VRL Logistics zoomed on the third and last day of bidding reflecting a gigantic over-subscription of 74.21 times of the issue size at 1930 hours on Friday. The offer received a total of 1,20,63,04,515 bids (over 120 crore), according to data available at the NSE site.

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The public offer saw a massive jump in bid subscription on Friday. On the second day, the offer received bids for 3,15,10,440 shares of the total issue size of 1,62,69,006 of, reflecting a subscription of 1.94 times, stock exchanges' data showed. High Networth Individuals were seen subscribing 250.85 times whereas the qualified institutional buyers (QIBs) category and retail investors subscribed 58.21 and 7.81 times of the issue respectively.

Sonam Udasi, head - research, Tata Asset Management, said,"Investors don't wanna block their money on the initial days when they can get the proportionate amount of the shares even on the last day. Retail investors also track the QIB and HNI moves to gauge the latter's interest in the IPO in the initial days."

The IPO constitutes fresh issuance of Rs 117 crore worth of equity and an offer for sale of 1.71 crore shares by NSR-PE Mauritius LLC and the promoters' family. The company had fixed a price band of Rs 195-205. At the issue size of 1,62,69,006 shares, the company would raise over Rs 333 crore at the upper band.

As per the company, 15 anchor investors including Eastspring Investments India, DSP Blackrock, ICICI Prudential India invested close to Rs 140.36 crore through allotment of 6.85 million shares.

"Post IPO, promoters stake would be reduced to 69-70% and 25% would be held by public and the rest 5% would be held by investors," said VRL Logistics chairman and managing director Vijay Shankeshwar.

The company plans to expand its existing fleet of goods transportation vehicles, repayment of debt of Rs 460 crore- long and short term together and for other general corporate purposes from the raised amount. "We already have good presence in south and west and northern part of the country, so we want to concentrate on central and eastern India, establishing more number of locations in these areas," said Sunil Nalavadi, CFO, VRL Logistics. "We are planning to add 80-100 branches on y-o-y basis" he added.

The company has proposed to list on BSE and NSE both. In 2013-14, the company had a revenue of Rs 1,503.8 crore with a growth rate of 12.6%. Revenue in the first nine months of 2014-15 was Rs 1,279.4 crore.

"VRL is an established business which has proven itself in terms of numbers, fleet and performance and can take logistics to a new level. The entire logistics sector will become better in the future with improved economy and implementation of GST" said a market expert who didn't wish to be named.

The issue managed by ICICI Securities and HSBC Securities and Capital Markets (India) is the company's second attempt to enter the capital markets. Earlier, in December 2010, the Karnataka-based company had filed draft documents with Sebi for an IPO of 2.35 crore shares.

The company has a goods transport fleet of around 4,000 vehicles, in which VRL Logistics owns 3,546 vehicles and employs some 15,000 people. It provides luxury bus service in Karnataka, Maharashtra, Goa, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat and Rajasthan.

At present, VRL Logistics has a pan-India network of 624 branches and 346 agencies.

Hubli-based VRL Logistics is the fourth company to hit the capital market with an IPO this year and more than two dozen companies are planning to launch their IPOs worth Rs 12,000 crore over the next 6-8 months amid anticipation of a bull run in the secondary markets.

"For IPOs, if the management team is strong, it gets subscribed in the secondary market other then the fundamentals of the company," said G Chokkalingam, managing director and founder, Equinomics Research and Advisory.Primary market jubilant after VRL's mega success