RailTel, the public sector unit with the exclusive right of way along railway networks, has its Initial Public Offer slated next week. On offer will be 8.71 crore equity shares, 27 per cent is being divested to the public, with a price band of ₹93-94 a share.

Minimum lot for bids have to be 155 shares and in multiples of 155. The IPO opens on February 16 and closes on February 18. It will open for anchor investors on February 15.

The company, whose data centre has been empanelled with Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, expects to see growth from businesses like railway signalling, e-health, online education, data centres and content on-demand, according to Puneet Chawla, CMD, RailTel.

“Covid-19 has had a positive impact on the company’s revenues and company’s business prospects,” he said, adding that demand for video-conferencing has grown 25 times post Covid-19 compared to the pre-Covid-19 times.

Security operations for data centres and other companies as a service are areas where RailTel expects profitable growth in the backdrop of accelerated demand for ICT.

The company, which positions itself as a neutral telecom service provider, has one of the sector’s highest margins. RailTel said that the telecom price war does not hit it and that it is present in a large chunk of remote areas where other telcos are not located.

It sees huge business scope as railways rolls out its signalling project termed Train Collision Avoidance System (TCAS). This will also require a high-speed telecom corridor along the railway network, which is another business area.

As per TRAI’s recommendation, RailTel expects to get the spectrum, for which Railway Ministry has approached Department of Telecom.

ICICI Securities, IDBI Capital Markets and Securities and SBI Capital Markets are the lead managers.

Village connectivity through telecom as envisaged by the Prime Minister, schools getting connected, are other business areas for RailTel.

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