10 cos line up IPOs worth Rs 10,000 cr in Dec

The IPO lane will continue to be busy in December as 10 companies have lined up initial share-sale plans worth more than Rs 10,000 crore, merchant banking sources said on Wednesday.

Moreover, the initial public offerings of Star Health and Allied Insurance and Tega Industries are currently open for public subscription.

This comes after 10 firms successfully concluded their initial public offerings (IPOs) in November.

Among the companies that scheduled their IPOs in this month include RateGain Travel Technologies, travel and hospitality technology services provider, and Anand Rathi Wealth Ltd, part of Mumbai-based financial services group Anand Rathi.

RateGain's Rs 1,335-crore initial share-sale will open for public subscription during December 7-9, and the Rs 660-crore IPO of Anand Rathi Wealth will open on December 2.

In addition, the companies that have firmed up their IPO plans are -- Global Health Ltd, which operates and manages hospitals under the Medanta brand, pharmacy retail chain MedPlus Health Services and Healthium Medtech, merchant banking sources said.

Apart from these, Metro Brands, Shriram Properties, AGS Transact Technologies, Shri Bajrang Power and Ispat and VLCC Health Care may also float their public issues in the period under review, they added.

Investment bankers said these companies will raise more than Rs 10,000 crore collectively.

The companies are raising funds to support business expansion plans, to retire debt and for general corporate purposes.

Some of the IPOs are an offer for sale (OFS), where private equity players or the promoter wants to cash out part of their holding.

Prateek Singh, founder and CEO of LearnApp.com, attributed the impressive pipeline to the bull run in the equity markets.

"The best time for any company to go for an IPO is during the bull market, which is also the reason why many companies are going for a public listing at this time.

"Companies look to tap into the sentiment from the public markets at such opportune times and are highly successful," he said.

Further, initial share-sales are receiving tremendous applications from the investors and IPOs have been subscribing multifold times.

This has pushed companies to raise funds through IPO.

He further said the trend will continue and more tech companies will try to go public in the immediate future until the market calms down and moves downward.

"So, if the markets fall in the future, the IPOs will also reduce," he added.

So far in 2021, as many as 51 companies have launched their IPOs to raise over Rs 1 lakh crore, according to analysis of data with exchanges.

Apart from these, PowerGrid InvIT, the infrastructure investment trust (InvIT) sponsored by the Power Grid Corporation of India, mopped-up Rs 7,735 crore through its IPO and Brookfield India Real Estate Trust raised Rs 3,800 crore via its initial share-sale.

The fundraising so far this year is way higher than the Rs 26,611 crore collected by 15 companies through initial share-sales in the entire 2020.

Such impressive fundraising through IPOs was last seen in 2017 when firms mobilised Rs 67,147 crore through 36 initial share-sales.