Antony Waste Handling Cell Ltd, India’s first waste management services company to go public, received a strong response to its initial public offering (IPO) that closed on Wednesday with demand across all investor categories.
The offering of about 6.67 million shares, excluding the anchor investors' portion, received bids for over 100 million shares, stock-exchange data showed. The book was subscribed 15.04 times at the end of day three.
The portion of shares reserved for institutional investors was subscribed 9.67 times, while non-institutional investors’ segment comprising corporate bodies and high net-worth individuals (HNIs) was subscribed 18.7 times.
Retail investors, whose bids cannot exceed Rs 2 lakh, bid for 16.55 times the shares reserved for them.
The IPO was fully covered on the first day with the help of retail investors. It picked up pace on Tuesday and received 3.83 times demand for its shares.
Ahead of the IPO, Antony Waste raised Rs 90 crore from anchor investors including Massachusetts Institute of Technology, SBI Mutual Fund and Tata AIG General Insurance Company by allotting 2.86 million shares at the upper end of its price band of Rs 313-315 apiece.
This is the second time that Antony Waste has attempted an IPO, after failing to go public in March this year as stock markets turned volatile in the pandemic.
The firm looked to raise Rs 85 crore in the revised issue as against Rs 98.5 crore earlier.
Antony Waste’s financial backer, activist hedge fund Elliott Management, had also reduced the number of shares up for sale from three-fourths of its 48% stake to just about half. The hedge fund had originally backed Antony Waste in 2007.
Elliott is a New York-based multi-billion dollar investment management and hedge fund. It is also the world’s largest activist fund in terms of assets under management and is controlled by Paul Singer.
Antony Waste eyed a valuation of around Rs 890 crore in IPO, about 11% more than what it was aiming for in March this year.
It had added IIFL Holding to the syndicate of merchant bankers arranging the share sale. Earlier, Equirus Capital was the sole merchant banker mandated to arrange the share sale.
Incorporated in January 2001, Antony Waste offers solid waste collection, transportation, and processing and disposal services. It primarily undertakes municipal solid waste (MSW) cleaning and transportation projects, MSW processing projects and mechanised sweeping projects directly or through its subsidiaries.
Antony Waste plans to use Rs 40 crore to part-finance a waste-to-energy plant for Pimpri Chinchwad Municipal Corporation. The project is being undertaken by group entity Antony Lara Renewable Energy Pvt. Ltd.
The company has also proposed to use Rs 38.5 crore from the fresh net proceeds to reduce its outstanding debt besides using a certain amount towards general corporate purposes.