After opening the day on a flat note, share markets in India have witnessed selling and are trading marginally below the dotted line. Sectoral indices are trading on a mixed note with stocks in the consumer durables sector and stocks in the auto sector leading the gains, while stocks in the oil & gas sector are trading in red.
The BSE Sensex is trading down by 26 points (down 0.1%), and the NSE Nifty is trading down by 12 points (down 0.1%). Meanwhile, the BSE Mid Cap index is trading flat, while the BSE Small Cap index is trading down by 0.3% The rupee is trading at 66.75 to the US$.
In news from the IPO space, the initial public offering (IPO) of Avenue Supermarts Ltd, which runs the D-Mart supermarket chain, opened to robust subscription on Wednesday with investors bidding for 1.36 times the number of shares on offer.
Institutional investors bid for 1.84 times the number of shares set aside for them, while high networth individuals and retail investors bid for 0.52 times and 1.44 times the shares available for them, stock exchange data showed.
The issue, worth Rs 18.7 billion, opened for subscription on Wednesday and closes on 10 March. The company is divesting 10% of its total equity shares.
Avenue plans to use Rs 10.8 billion to repay debt and Rs 3 billion to purchase and build new stores.
The strong demand for the IPO can be attributed to the fact that the company is one of the most profitable retailers in the country, and posted a Rs 3 billion profit after tax on revenues of Rs 88 billion in fiscal 2017, until December 2016.
Rohan Pinto, my colleague, and head of the ValuePro team, has crunched the numbers and put together an exhaustive report on the D-Mart IPO and whether you should subscribe. You can give it a read here (Subscription Required).
Meanwhile, the IPO of Radio City FM operator Music Broadcast Ltd was oversubscribed 39.3 times on Wednesday, the last day of the offering. The issue had opened on 6 March.
