Vodafone Idea's ₹18,000-crore FPO oversubscribed more than 6 times, led by QIBs
₹18,000-crore follow-on public offer, the largest so far by an Indian company, was oversubscribed more than six times on Monday, the last day of bidding, led by qualified institutional buyers that subscribed 19.3 times the portion reserved for them. The FPO, which is larger than the ₹15,000-crore FPO by Yes Bank in 2020, had opened for anchor investors on 16 April and retail investors on 18 April, closed on Monday.
The FPO shares will be listed on the bourses on 25 April. According to data on the BSE, the country's third-largest telecom operator, which plans to use the FPO proceeds to launch 5G services and upgrade existing 2G customers to 4G, was able to get the maximum oversubscription from foreign institutional investors, followed by mutual funds and domestic financial institutions, among the qualified institutional buyers.
This portion of shares drew bids of nearly ₹88,000 crore. The portion of shares kept for non-institutional investors was subscribed 4.54 times, while that for retail investors was fully subscribed, as per BSE data as of 7 pm.
The company has already raised ₹5,400 crore from anchor investors including GQG Partners, Fidelity Investments, UBS Fund Management, Jupiter Fund Management, Australian Super, besides domestic investors India Infoline, Motilal Oswal, HDFC Mutual Fund, SBI General Insurance, and Quant. The carrier had finalised allocation of 4.9 billion shares to anchor investors at ₹11 apiece last week.
US-based GQG Partners has been allocated the highest number of shares, worth ₹1,345 crore, while Fidelity Investments has invested about ₹772 crore in the FPO. Brokerage house Ambit Capital Research termed the response from the markets to the fund-raise as ‘unexpected’, noting the heightened
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