Indian firms open $1.7 Billion share offers
By siliconindia   |   Wednesday, 01 July 2009, 00:10 IST   |    1 Comments
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Indian firms open $1.7 Billion share offers
New Delhi: With the investor's confidence revived by stock market, Indian companies have launched share sales of $1.7 billion on Monday. The bankers have said that more would follow this week. This has come after a month-long lull and a week ahead of the Union budget, reports Reuters. "It is not funny. These people think there could be something that could go wrong in the budget. They just feel next Monday may be too late," said Arun Kejriwal, Director, KRIS. The government is likely to keep tax rates broadly unchanged in its budget on July 6 and explore other avenues such as 3G wireless spectrum auction and stake sales in state firms to raise cash. But expectations have been built in the run-up to the budget after a decisive election verdict for the ruling coalition, and analysts feel it may disappoint sections of industry and investors. The companies which opened or received commitments for as much as $1.73 billion were GMR Infrastructure with a $500 million share sale, real estate firms Unitech with $575 million sale and $300 million by Housing Development Infrastructure. Government of Singapore Investment, British insurer Prudential, HSBC Holdings, billionaire George Soros and DE Shaw have been among those investing in Indian offers this year. Lanco Infratech with a $400 million offer and Puravankara Projects are also expected to launch offers. $8.5 billion in share sales will be raised by around three dozen firms. The pace of equity sales also could get double the $2.6 billion raised by 11 Indian firms so far in 2009. India's benchmark stock index has jumped nearly 85 percent from its 2009 low in early March, powered by net foreign fund inflows of more than $7 billion since then. Foreigners had sold Indian shares worth $13 billion in 2008 when the benchmark fell a record 52 percent and crippled share sales in the last three quarters of the year. Mahindra Holidays & Resorts India, a unit of utility vehicle maker Mahindra & Mahindra, said last week their initial publics offer for $58 million, the first main IPO in more than a year was subscribed 9.8 times.

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