Veeda Clinical Research Limited has received clearance from the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) to file its initial public offering (IPO), with private equity firm CX Partners making a partial exit from its investment in the clinical research organisation.
Veeda had filed draft papers for a Rs 831.6 crore initial public offering in September this year.
The IPO consists of a fresh issue of Rs 331.60 crore and an offer for sale (OFS) of Rs 500 crore by shareholders and promoters.
The OFS comprises a Rs 8.08 crore sale by CX Alternative Investment Fund, Rs 90.19 crore sale by Arabelle Financial Services Ltd, Rs 259.77 crore sale by Bondway Investments Inc, Rs 4 lakh sale by Stevey International Corporation and Rs 141.93 crore sale by Basil Pvt Ltd.
Currently, CX Alternative Investment Fund holds 2.98% stake, Arabelle 4.51% stake, Bondway 28.36% stake, Stevey 0.002% stake, and Basil 52.42% stake.
CX Alternative Investment Fund, Bondway, Basil, and Arabelle are all CX Partners entities.
SBI Capital Markets, ICICI Securities, JM Financial and Systematix Corporate Services are book running managers to the issue.
The proceeds from the issue worth Rs 28.71 crore will be used to repay debt availed by Veeda’s arm Bioneeds, Rs 33 crore for funding capital expenditure, Rs 45 crore for investment in Veeda’s arm for financing capital requirements, Rs 75 crore for funding further acquisition of shares of Bioneeds, Rs 17 crore for funding acquisition of shares of Ingenuity BioSciences and Rs 50 crore for funding working capital requirements.
In July 2021, Veeda bought a 50.10% interest in Bioneeds which is a preclinical contract research organisation providing discovery, development and regulatory services to the pharmaceutical industry.
As a result of the investment, the firm gained access to two facilities in Bengaluru having 99 exclusive experiment rooms together with self-contained chemistry, biopharma and analytical laboratories.
The firm intends to invest further to buy 100% stake in Bioneeds.
As of March 2021, Bioneeds had total secured borrowings of Rs 43.78 crore and total unsecured borrowings of Rs 26.66 crore.
Veeda, headquartered in Ahmedabad, offers a range of early and late-phase bioequivalence studies and clinical trials to generic and innovator pharmaceutical companies.
It claims to have conducted more than 3,500 trials and developed more than 1,000 bioanalytical methods across generics, new chemical entities, and biosimilars. Veeda has completed more than 85 global regulatory inspections.
The firm has four facilities at Ahmedabad and one at Mehsana, Gujarat capable of serving as sites for clinical trials, bioanalytical studies facilities and volunteer screening facilities. It had also installed 46 bioanalytical systems across its facilities for providing efficient bioanalytical services with a capability of processing one lakh samples per month, as on March 2021.
Further, for its per-clinical trials Veeda had built two facilities in Bengaluru at Peenya and Devarahosanhally with 99 experiment rooms designed as per international standards.
For fiscal year 2021, its revenue from operations was Rs 195.81 crore against Rs 151.27 crore a year ago. Net profit stood at Rs 62.97 crore against a net loss of Rs 0.43 million. Net debt was Rs 9.36 crore.
In June 2021, Veeda announced that it had raised $16 million (around Rs 118 crore) in a funding round led by private equity fund Sabre Partners.