Ka-ching! Promoters, investors rake in ₹71,033 cr in IPO mela

CY21 set the cash registers ringing for over 600 selling shareholders as they took home a record $9.47 billion (₹71,033 crore) by offloading their holdings through initial public offerings (IPOs) during the year. The selling shareholders comprise promoters, private equity, venture capital funds and high net worth investors.

To put in perspective, the offer for sale (OFS) portion comprised nearly 60% of the ₹1,18,704 crore raised by 63 corporates during the year. In other words, only ₹47,671 crore flowed back into the company’s coffers to fuel their growth as promoters and investors made the most of the frenzy on the Street to bolster their personal fortunes.

Of the $9.47 billion, 16 entities, including a high net worth investor (HNI), accounted for a chunk (45%) of the mop-up at $4.27 billion (₹32,086 crore). The chart-topper was Ant Financial of China, which raked in ₹4,704 crore through the IPO of One 97 Communications (Paytm), which was the country’s largest-ever float at ₹18,300 crore. Nirma-owned Niyogi Enterprise was the biggest Indian promoter to take home ₹3,500 crore through the sale of its holding in the ₹5,000-crore IPO of cement player Nuvocos Vistas. The second-biggest OFS came from Safecrop Investments India, the promoter of Star Health and Allied Insurance. Though the issue size was cut down to ₹6,400 crore from ₹7,429 crore owing to tepid investor response, the promoter had nothing to lose.

The only HNI to figure in the top 16 was Harindarpal Singh Banga and wife Indra Banga, who took home ₹1,147 crore through the sale of 10.2 million shares in Nykaa’s IPO. The Hong Kong-based billionaire couple continue to hold a stake worth ₹6,440 crore (6.44%) in the online beauty and fashion retailer, whose current market cap is around ₹1 lakh crore.

Of the balance, 99 entities cumulatively accounted for ₹33,152 crore, raking it in within the ₹100- 1,000 core bracket. The bottom of the mop-up list comprised 278 entities that took home less than ₹1 crore each of the cumulative ₹66.89 crore. Of this list, Saurabh Vijay Bhat took home ₹0.97 crore by selling his stake in Aptus Value Housing, followed by Ratan Tata-backed RNT Associates, which raked in ₹0.94 crore in the Patym IPO.

Incidentally, the overall IPO collections of the year is nearly 4.5 times of the ₹26,613 crore raised through 15 IPOs in CY20 and almost double of the previous best year 2017 in which ₹68,827 crore was raised, according to Primedatabase. Overall, public equity fundraising crossed the ₹2-lakh-crore mark to reach ₹2,02,009 crore in calendar 2021, which was higher than the previous highest amount of ₹1,76,914 crore in the preceding year.

According to Primedatabase, of the 59 IPOs for which data is available, 36 issues received a mega response of more than 10 times (of which six saw more than 100 times oversubscription) while eight IPOs were oversubscribed by more than 3 times. The balance 15 IPOs were oversubscribed between 1 to 3 times.