Muthoot Finance Ltd, the largest gold financing company in India in terms of loan portfolio, proposes to enter the capital market through IPO route with an initial public offer of 5.1 crore equity shares.

The object of the issue, billed as the biggest public issue in Kerala, is to augment the Company’s Capital base to meet future capital requirements to provide for funding of loans to customers and general corporate purposes, Managing Director, Mr George Alexander Muthoot, told reporters here on Saturday.

The 51,500,000 equity shares with a face value of Rs 10 each for cash at a Price Band fixed between Rs 160-Rs 175 an equity share would be available in the market from April 18, he said.

The issue closing date will be Apr 20 for Qualified Institutional Buyers (QIB)s and April 21 for non QIB bidders. The issue would constitute 13.85 per cent of the post issue paid up capital of the company, he said.

The minimum bid lot is 40 equity shares and additional applications can be made in multiples of 40 equity shares thereafter.

The issue has been graded by CRISIL and ICRA ltd and has been assigned the ‘IPO Grade 4/5’ by both grading agencies.

The company has already sold 15 per cent of the issue to Anchor investors aggregating to about Rs 131.33 crore. Anchor investors include Goldman Sachs India Fund ltd, Barring India Private Equity fund III listed Investment Ltd and Credit Suisse (Singapore) Ltd.

The issue is being made through book building process wherein not more than 50 per cent of the issue shall be available for allocation to QIBs.

Executive Director, Mr K Padmakumar said the IPO was an ‘important transformational step’ for the company which started gold financing in 1939.

Mr Muthoot has 2611 branches across 20 states. Organised Gold loan business in India is worth Rs 38,000 crore of which the company’s market share is 20 per cent.

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