Home First Finance garners Rs 346 cr from anchor investors ahead of IPO

Mortgage financier Home First Finance Company (HFFC) on Wednesday raised a little over Rs 346 crore from anchor investors, ahead of its initial share-sale, which will open for public subscription on Thursday.

A total of 66,81,766 shares have been allotted to 25 anchor investors at Rs 518 per share, the upper end of the price band. At this price, the company raised Rs 346.11 crore, according to a BSE circular.

Among the 25 anchor investors are Nomura, Fidelity International, Morgan Stanley India Investment Fund, Goldman Sachs (Singapore) Pte, ICICI Prudential Mutual Fund (MF), Nippon India MF, Tata AIA Life Insurance Co Ltd and Max Life Insurance Company Ltd.

The Rs 1,153.71-crore IPO comprises fresh issue of up to Rs 265 crore and an offer for sale aggregating up to Rs 888.71 crore by the promoters and existing shareholders.

The offer for sale consists of shares worth Rs 435.61 crore by promoter True North Fund V LLP, Rs 291.28 crore by promoter Aether (Mauritius) Ltd, Rs 120.46 crore by investor Bessemer India Capital Holdings II Ltd and up to Rs 41.3 crore by two individual shareholders -- PS Jayakumar and Manoj Viswanathan.

The company has reduced the fresh issue size following the allotment of shares worth Rs 75 crore and Rs 4.84 crore to Orange Clove Investments B.V., an affiliate of Warburg Pincus, and its certain employees, respectively, by way of the preferential issue.

HFFC has fixed a price band of Rs 517-518 a share for its initial share-sale, which will open for public subscription on January 21 and close on January 25.

The company intends to utilise the net proceeds towards augmenting its capital base to meet its future requirements.

Half of the issue is reserved for qualified institutional buyers, 35 per cent for retail investors and 15 per cent for non-institutional buyers.

Axis Capital, Credit Suisse Securities (India) Pvt Ltd, ICICI Securities and Kotak Mahindra Capital Company will manage the share sale.

Shares of the company are proposed to be listed on the National Stock Exchange (NSE) and BSE.