SBI Cards IPO: Anchor book gets strong response

The ₹10,355 crore IPO of SBI Cards and Payments (SBI Cards) got off to a strong start with the anchor book getting responses from 74 investors including 12 mutual funds (through 48 schemes). As many as 3.67 crore shares have been allocated to these anchor investors at ₹755 per share (upper end of the price band) aggregating ₹2,768.55 crore.

Several marquee investors including Government of Singapore (5.44 per cent of anchor investor portion), Monetary Authority of Singapore (1.78 per cent), Kuwait Investment Authority Fund 225 (3.97 per cent), Government Pension Fund Global (5.42 per cent), HDFC Mutual Fund (5.60 per cent), Pioneer Investment Fund (5.06 per cent), Nomura Funds Ireland-India Equity Fund (3.97 per cent) and  Goldman Sachs India (2.27 per cent) have got allocation of shares under the anchor investor portion.

The SBI Cards IPO, which is India’s fifth largest IPO, will open on March 2 and close on March 5.

The strong response for the Anchor book comes in the backdrop of stock market carnage this past week owing to fears of coronavirus spreading and causing wide spread disruptions in global supply chains.

Friday’s meltdown in stock markets has raised concerns, especially among small investors, that the prospects of the IPO could be hurt if the negative sentiments in the equity markets persisted. Benchmark Sensex has already plunged 3,000 points after the coronavirus fears hit the Indian equity markets    for the first time during second week of this month.

However, analysts feel that the steep fall in secondary markets was unlikely to make a big difference to the success of the IPO, with the wide expectation that the shares may see listing gains. As much as 35 per cent of the issue size has been reserved for small investors.

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