IndiGo Operator Is Said to Select Banks for India Share Sale

(Bloomberg) -- InterGlobe Aviation Ltd., which runs India’s largest airline, has picked banks including Citigroup Inc., JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Morgan Stanley to work on an institutional share sale, according to people with knowledge of the matter.

The operator of IndiGo is planning the deal to help cut its owners’ stake to achieve the minimum public shareholding of 25 percent, the people said, asking not to be identified because the information is private. To meet requirements, the company or its controlling shareholders must sell a 10.85 percent stake, worth about 49 billion rupees ($762 million) based on the current share price, according to data complied by Bloomberg.

A sale would extend a rebound in Indian equity offerings, which have raised 822 billion rupees this year, almost three times as much as during the same 2016 period, data compiled by Bloomberg show. The firm said Wednesday its board will meet this month to consider how to achieve the float target.

InterGlobe’s founders held 85.85 percent of the company at the end of June, while public shareholding was at 14.15 percent, according to BSE data.

Shares of the Gurgaon-based company fell as much as 1.1 percent in Mumbai trading Friday, while the benchmark S&P BSE Sensex Index gained as much as 0.5 percent. Representatives for InterGlobe, Citigroup, Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan declined to comment.

InterGlobe, majority owned by billionaire founders Rahul Bhatia and Rakesh Gangwal, has expressed interest in buying a stake in loss-making Air India Ltd. IndiGo’s founders said they are interested in taking over the state-run carrier’s overseas operations or the entire business.

To contact the reporters on this story: George Smith Alexander in Mumbai at galexander11@bloomberg.net, Anurag Kotoky in New Delhi at akotoky@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Ben Scent at bscent@bloomberg.net, Timothy Sifert, Sam Nagarajan