Indian home services marketplace Urban Company‘s 19 billion rupees ($216 million) initial public offering (IPO) was fully subscribed within hours of launch on Wednesday, led by strong demand from retail investors, exchange data showed.
Retail investors’ portion, which was only 18% of the offering, was subscribed 3.24 times, as of 12:16 p.m. IST.
The portion set aside for institutional buyers, more than half of the IPO, was subscribed 20%. While the non-institutional investors’ part, which includes corporates, was subscribed 1.39 times.
The issue will close on September 12, and the stock will start trading on September 17.
The company raised 8.54 billion rupees from marquee investors, including SBI Life Insurance SBIL.NSandICICI Prudential Life Insurance, on Tuesday in the anchor round of the IPO.
The firm set a price band of 98 rupees to 103 rupees for the shares, targeting a valuation of $1.70 billion, which Ishank Gupta, a research analyst at Deven Choksey, believes is “fairly priced” when compared with the financial performance of competitors.
Indian startups, such as e-tailers Lenskart and Meesho are also looking to list their shares in a bid to tap the world’s second-largest IPO market. The companies hope to cash in on growing demand and rising household incomes in the world’s most populous country.
Urban Company, which offers services ranging from spas to plumbing repairs, rivals firms such as Housejoy and Sulekha. However, it mainly competes with unorganised and diverse regional players.
It turned profitable in the last financial year with revenue at 11.44 billion rupees, a 38% rise year-on-year.
Its IPO includes 4.72 billion rupees worth of shares for the fresh issue.
Existing shareholders and early backers, including Accel India and Elevation Capital, are looking to offload shares worth 14.28 billion rupees.
Reuters
