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India’s SBI Cards Is On Track to Pull Off $1.4 Billion IPO

India’s SBI Cards Is On Track to Pull Off $1.4 Billion IPO

(Bloomberg) --

India’s first initial public offering by a credit card company and the largest float in more than two years is on the cusp of sailing unscathed through the market turmoil caused by the novel coronavirus outbreak.

SBI Cards & Payment Services Ltd. received orders for 22.5 times the shares on offer as of 5:30 p.m. Mumbai time, according to data on the National Stock Exchange’s website. It’s a strong showing for India’s first billion-dollar IPO since 2017, which was a record year for the nation’s listings. The public offer period closes on Thursday.

The deal, which could raise as much as $1.4 billion at the top of the price range, could hardly have come at a worse time in terms of market backdrop. As the coronavirus spread outside China and Asia and investors fretted about the potential economic impact of the outbreak that has killed over 3,200, global stocks have taken a pummeling. The rout even prompted the U.S. Federal Reserve to make an emergency rate cut.

Infections have been spreading in India too, jumping to 28. Both the S&P BSE Sensex Index and the NSE Nifty 50 Index have tumbled about 6% in the last two weeks as investors veered away from risk assets. There had been concerns that the risk-averse sentiment in the markets could impact the IPO’s over-subscription rate. The institutional tranche had received bids for 57 times the amount of shares on offer as of Wednesday, exchange data showed.

The credit card company, backed by State Bank of India and private equity firm Carlyle, is offering up to 5 billion rupees ($68 million) of new shares, while the two shareholders are selling as many as 130.5 million shares.

A successful deal will be a strong showing for the Indian IPO market, which has so far got off to a very slow start. Deals covering the eight companies that have listed so far in 2020 have been tiny, with the largest having raised just $1.6 million.

The public-health crisis has scuppered or delayed the listing plans of many companies in Asia, from Indonesia’s largest private airline Lion Air to a Japanese restaurant operator, as travel restrictions and market volatility make it difficult to execute deals.

UPCOMING LISTINGS:

  • SBI Cards & Payment Services
    • BSE India
    • Size up to $1.44b
    • Listing March 16
    • Axis Capital, BofA, HSBC, Kotak Mahindra, Nomura, SBI
  • United Hampshire U.S. REIT
    • Singapore exchange
    • Size $324m
    • Listing March 12
    • UBS, Credit Suisse, UOB, UOB Kay Hian, HSBC
  • InnoCare Pharma
    • Hong Kong exchange
    • Size up to $300m
    • Pre-marketing from March 2
    • Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, UBS
  • China Bright Culture Group

    • Hong Kong exchange
    • Size up to $173m
    • Pricing March 5
    • Haitong, Bocom, AMTD
  • Champ Resto Indonesia
    • Indonesia stock exchange
    • Size about $150m
    • Pre-marketing started Jan. 31
    • CLSA
  • Mr D.I.Y. Group
    • Bursa Malaysia
    • Size up to $500m
    • Pricing date TBD
    • CIMB, Maybank
  • Lion Air
    • Indonesia stock exchange
    • Size over $500m
    • Pre-marketing Jan. 27-Feb. 7
    • BNP Paribas, Morgan Stanley

More ECM situations we are following:

  • Chaozhou Three-Circle to raise up to 2.18b yuan in share sale
  • A block trade of China Tower shares has raised about $156 million

See also:

  • Asia ECM Weekly Agenda
  • IPO data
  • U.S. ECM Watch
  • EU ECM Watch
  • To receive the ECM Watch in your inbox daily, click the “subscribe” button at the top of this article

To contact the reporter on this story: Julia Fioretti in Hong Kong at jfioretti4@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Lianting Tu at ltu4@bloomberg.net, Margo Towie, Ravil Shirodkar

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