12 september 2024 : The home-loan arm of India’s largest shadow bank, Bajaj Housing Finance Ltd., saw a tremendous response for its initial public offering (IPO), underscoring strong investor enthusiasm for new listings in the country.
Bajaj Housing Finance aimed to raise 65.6 billion rupees ($781 million) in what has become India’s largest public offering of 2024. By the final day of the sale, bids reached around $39 billion — an amount that is more than 1% of India’s GDP for the fiscal year ending in 2024.
Institutional investors were the primary drivers of this demand, with bids exceeding 200 times the shares allocated for them. Meanwhile, the retail segment was oversubscribed by seven times. This level of demand surpassed the impressive IPO of Tata Technologies last year.
India has been active with IPOs this year, with a total of $7.75 billion raised so far, exceeding the amounts from each of the past two years, according to Bloomberg data. Investors have been keen on capitalizing on first-day gains, which have averaged about 30% in 2024.
Even larger offerings are anticipated, with Hyundai Motor Co. expected to raise up to $3.5 billion from the listing of its Indian unit in the coming months, as reported by Bloomberg in July.
Bajaj Housing Finance plans to raise up to 35.6 billion rupees through the sale of new shares, while its parent, Bajaj Finance, offered shares worth up to 30 billion rupees. On September 6, anchor investors, including the Government of Singapore, Goldman Sachs, and JPMorgan India, subscribed to 251.14 million shares valued at 17.6 billion rupees, at a price of 70 rupees per share.
