S Chand & Company Ltd has increased the size of its initial share sale that opens next week, as the education-focused publishing house looks to benefit from a rise in stock markets this year.
The company, nearly one-third owned by private equity firm Everstone, aims to raise Rs 325 crore by issuing new shares, according to its red herring prospectus filed with regulators. It had earlier targeted to mop up Rs 300 crore.
The IPO also includes an offer for sale of about 6 million shares by Everstone and other shareholders, including the promoters. The size of the offer for sale remains unchanged. The selling shareholders will mobilise up to Rs 403 crore after the company on Wednesday fixed the price band of the issue at Rs 660-670 apiece.
At the upper end of the price band, the company will have a valuation of Rs 2,325 crore ($360 million).
The IPO will open on 26 April and close two days later.
S Chand is one of almost a dozen companies with regulatory approval to float an IPO. In addition, around 10 firms are seeking clearance from the Securities and Exchange Board of India to go public.
The companies that have already floated their IPOs this year include stock-exchange operator BSE Ltd, D-Mart hypermarket operator Avenue Supermarts Ltd, FM radio company Music Broadcast Ltd and Shankara Building Products Ltd. The rush to float share sales comes as benchmark indexes have risen almost 10% in 2017.
S Chand, which is also backed by International Finance Corporation, had filed its draft red herring prospectus with SEBI on 19 December. It received SEBI clearance last month.
The IPO comes barely months after S Chand made one of the largest acquisitions in India’s education-related publishing segment. As first reported by VCCircle, it picked up a majority stake at an enterprise value of Rs 220 crore ($32.8 million then) in Kolkata-based Chhaya Prakashani Pvt. Ltd, which publishes a gamut of books for students of up to 12th standard (K-12), college-goers and engineering students.
For more details of the company and its IPO, click here.
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