Just Dial issue subscribed over 11 times

The initial public offering of Just Dial Ltd, which runs the India-specific local business listings site Justdial.com, has received an enthusiastic response with the issue being oversubscribed over 10 times. Although subscriptions were initially led by institutional and retail investors, high networth individuals (HNIs) and corporates also emerged as some of the largest buyers during the last hours of the issue period.

The IPO, which closed on Wednesday, signifies investor appetite for internet firms in India and helps set a benchmark for valuations in this space in spite of mixed analysts' views on its aggressive valuation pitch.

Enthusiastic response

The firm set a price band of Rs 470-Rs 543 for the maiden public float. The issue solely comprised secondary sale of shares and turned out to be the largest public offering by an Indian internet company. Just Dial offered 13.5 million shares in the IPO after allocating a portion for the anchor investors.

According to stock exchange data, the offering has been covered 11.6 times the issue size (10.6x oversubscribed) by 5:27 pm, led by HNIs and corporates subscribing their quote over 22 times. Qualified institutional buyers (QIBs) including FIIs and mutual funds, also subscribed their portion over 10.1 times. While FIIs led the pack, mutual funds and domestic institutions also emerged large buyers, bidding for over 19 million shares.

The issue had also seen enthusiastic response from retail investors who bought their reserved portion over 3.4 times. HNI and corporate quota also got fully covered with similar subscriptions as the retail investors, just a couple of hours before the issue deadline.

Just Dial had earlier raised Rs 208.66 crore or approximately $38 million from anchor investors including Singapore sovereign wealth fund Temasek and asset management major Fidelity. The Mumbai-based firm sold 3.94 million shares to 15 anchor investors at Rs 530 per share. Just Dial is looking to raise as much as Rs 936.8 crore through its issue.

Citigroup Global Markets India and Morgan Stanley India are the book running lead managers to the issue.

Big returns for VCs

The issue will provide multi-bagger returns for Just Dial investors like SAIF Partners and Tiger Global in what has been a slow-exit market, especially through IPOs.

According to VCCEdge, the number of PE exits through IPO had fallen from 14 in 2010 to 3 in 2011 to 6 in 2012. In 2013, there have been two such exits "the other being the IPO of V-Mart Retail.

SAIF Partners, Tiger Global and Sequoia Capital are expected to make 8x-12x returns on their investments.

SAIF Partners, Tiger Global, Sequoia Capital and SAP Ventures collectively sold 18.1 per cent stake in the issue, which should bring in approximately Rs 688 crore for these investors (for details, read here).

Just Dial's listing may also set a precedent for internet IPOs in India as several players like classifieds firm Matrimony.com Pvt Ltd (formerly Consim Info) and e-tailer HomeShop18 are looking at public listing as well.

(Edited by Sanghamitra Mandal)