Epack Durable Ltd, an original equipment manufacturer of home appliances, made a weak stock market debut Tuesday as its shares listing at a discount to the issue price and then falling further.
Shares of Epack began trading at Rs 225 apiece on the BSE, compared with the initial public offering of Rs 230 per share. The shares dropped to a low of Rs 211.20 and were trading 5.8% down at Rs 216.65 around noon, stock-exchange data show. This gives the company a market valuation of around Rs 2,075 crore.
The disappointing debut comes despite the company’s IPO receiving strong response from investors. The IPO was covered about 16.4 times. Institutional investors bid for 25.5 times their quota, non-institutional investors placed offers for 28.1 times their quota and retail investors placing bids for 6.3 times the portion reserved for them.
The IPO comprised a fresh issue of shares worth Rs 400 crore and an offer for sale of shares worth Rs 240 crore by its promoters Bothra and Singhania families and private equity firm ICICI Venture.
ICICI Venture, which has a presence across private equity, real estate, special situations and infrastructure asset classes, sold a third of its 20.1% stake in Epack Durable and likely managed to beat benchmark returns.
The PE firm, which recently wrapped up the fundraising process for its fifth fund, revised its plan and sold 5.2 million shares as against the 7.8 million it had planned earlier.
ICICI Venture is one of the two private equity investors in the company. In 2022, Affirma Capital joined the captable of Epack. Affirma, which was spun out of Standard Chartered PE, invested around Rs 160 crore, or just under $20 million, in Epack through a fresh allotment of shares. This topped up a similar amount invested by ICICI Venture the previous year.
Noida-based Epack Group consists of a string of companies that are held by the Bothra and Singhania families. The group makes EPS thermocol products and pre-fabricated structures. It is the biggest supplier of moulded thermocol (used as a packaging material for consumer durable products) to LG Electronics India.
Epack Durable manufactures air conditioners, induction cooktops, juicer-mixer-grinders and water dispensers for customers such as Voltas, Havells, Godrej, Whirlpool, Haier, Blue Star, Philips and Bajaj.
Another group company, owned entirely by the Bothra family, undertakes EPS manufacturing and electronics parts manufacturing for customers such as Samsung, Whirlpool, Schneider Electric and Panasonic.
Epack competes with the likes of larger peers such as Amber Enterprises, Dixon Technologies and PG Electroplast.