Market sentiment might suggest that the appetite for public issues — IPOs and FPOs — and offers-for-sale would be as positive, but the ground reality seems to be different.

According to SEBI data of September 12, there were only three IPO offer documents with the regulator for processing — Adlabs, Lavasa and Ortel Communications. Marketmen are expecting offerings to the tune of about ₹80,000 crore this fiscal, with the Government issuances alone accounting for about ₹45,000 crore.

Positive curve ahead

Varun Goel, Head — PMS, Karvy Private Wealth, said: “These are still early days but the trend is going to strengthen. People are timing their issues after factoring in the Government divestment programme. The appetite from retail investors would depend on the issue pricing, company fundamentals and the discount offered.”

The same is echoed by Pranjal Srivastava, Senior V-P & Head — Capital Markets ICICI Securities: “Though the retail appetite is very strong, there won’t be too many IPOs available as there are not many offer documents being processed by the regulator. However, there would be action on the Government offer-for-sale where a 10 per cent discount for retail investors is usually offered. Retail investors are likely to redeploy their investible surplus from gold, fixed income and the like into IPOs/OFS.”

Those in the street are still circumspect about the line-up of issuances.

Arun Kejriwal, Founder — KRIS Research, says “The ₹80,000 crore line-up of issuances is invisible as of now, given that only three IPOs have come out in the couple of months.

“As far as retail appetite is concerned it is very difficult to fathom the extent to which they can subscribe to a public offering, given that they have been currently sellers in the market.”

The Centre is likely to come out with an offer-for-sale for ONGC, NHPC, REC and PFC in the coming months.

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