India State-Owned Garden Reach Shipbuilders IPO Shows Weak Response

A patrol ship is christened at the Garden Reach Shipyard on December 31, 2018. Photo: Garden Reach Shipbuilding

Sept 26 (Reuters) – State-owned Garden Reach Shipbuilders & Engineers Ltd’s initial public offering (IPO) to raise up to 3.45 billion rupees ($47.45 million) received weak response from investors with only 67 percent of the shares on offer being subscribed on the closing day on Wednesday.

Investors bid for around 19.7 million shares of the defence shipbuilder, compared with the 29.2 million shares the government had put on the block, stock exchange data as of 1130 GMT showed.

The government had initially planned to sell 20 million shares.

The company’s financials do not depict any particular growth trend given the “lumpy” nature of the cyclical ship-building business, Centrum Wealth Research said in a pre-IPO note.

Garden Reach Shipbuilders had set a price range of 115-118 rupee for the IPO.

The offering is part of the government’s plan disclosed last year to sell up to 25 percent of its stake in four state-owned companies under the control of the department of defence.

Earlier this year, Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd’s IPO did not manage to get full subscription, prompting the state-run military aircraft maker to price its offer at the bottom end of the range, and raising a lower-than-expected 41.13 billion rupees for the government.

IDBI Capital Markets & Securities and YES Securities (India) were managing the Garden Reach Shipbuilders IPO.

($1 = 72.7025 Indian rupees) (Reporting by Chris Thomas in Bengaluru; Editing by Subhranshu Sahu)

(c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2018.

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