JSW Cement raises ₹1,080 crore from anchor investors; IPO to open today

The ₹3,600-crore initial public offering (IPO) of JSW Cement will open for subscription today. Ahead of opening of the public issue, the JSW Group company raised ₹1,080 crore from anchor investors by allotting over 7.3 crore shares at the upper price band of ₹147 per equity share.

According to the exchange data, 52 institutional investors participated in the anchor book of the Sajjan Jindal-owned JSW Group company. The list included global investors such as BlackRock, UBS Fund Management, Government of Singapore, Government Pension Fund Global, Nomura Funds, Stichting Depository APG, Principal Funds, Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, Amundi Funds, Morgan Stanley, Kuwait Investment Authority, Florida Retirement System, Societe Generale, Neuberger Berman, and Goldman Sachs.

Over 44% of the anchor book quota was allocated to 9 domestic mutual funds, which applied through 20 schemes. SBI Mutual Fund, SBI Life Insurance Company, Nippon Life India, Tata Mutual Fund, Motilal Oswal Mutual Fund, Aditya Birla Sun Life AMC, Baroda BNP Paribas MF, Edelweiss Life Insurance and others participated in the anchor book.

The three-day JSW Cement IPO will close on August 11, while allotment of shares is expected to be finalised on August 12. The cement stock is set to be listed on the BSE and NSE on August 14, 2025.

The IPO of the cement company comprises a fresh issue of equity shares worth ₹1,600 crore and an offer-for-sale (OFS) amounting to ₹2,000 crore by existing shareholders at a price band of ₹139-147 per share. Under the OFS, AP Asia Opportunistic Holdings Pte. Ltd and Synergy Metals Investments Holding will offload shares worth ₹937.50 crore each, while State Bank of India (SBI) will pare its stake by ₹125 crore.

Out of the fresh equity capital, JSW Cement aims to use ₹800 crore for funding the cost of establishing a new integrated cement unit at Nagaur (Rajasthan), and ₹720 crore to repay debts availed by it. A part of the capital will be utilised to meet general corporate purposes. As of March 31, 2024, the total debt under the various financing arrangements of the company stood at ₹5,835.76 crore.

The JSW Group company plans to set up a greenfield integrated cement unit at Nagaur, consisting of clinker capacity of 3.30 million tonnes per annum (MTPA) along with grinding capacity of 2.50 MTPA. The Nagaur project will utilise limestone to manufacture clinker, which will further be milled to produce ordinary portland cement and portland pozzolana cement.

This is going to be the first major public offering in the cement space since Nuvoco Vistas' ₹5,000-crore issue in August 2021. Also, this will become the fourth company of the steel-to-power conglomerate to get listed on the domestic bourses after JSW Infrastructure on October 3, 2023.

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