Bajaj Housing Finance IPO fully subscribed in 4 hours

Bajaj Housing Finance Ltd's ₹6,560-crore initial public offering (IPO), which opened for subscription today, was fully subscribed within four hours. Qualified institutional buyers(QIBs) subscribed a minimum of 0.2 times, while the non-institutional investors category subscribed 2.44 times. In the QIB category, just 39,18,340 bids were placed for 17,75,75,756 shares on offer, while 32,43,80,772 shares were bid for in the NII category against 13,31,81,819 on offer.

The retail category received 1.01 times subscriptions, while the employees category was subscribed 0.22 times. A total of 31,42,99,232 shares were bid for against 31,07,57,576 on offer in the retail category. The employee bids were placed for just 65,32,564 shares vs 3,03,03,030 on offer. Overall 76,85,85,280 bids were placed for 72,75,75,756 shares on offer as of 2.10 pm on Monday, and the IPO was subscribed 1.06 times.

The finance service arm of Bajaj Finance garnered ₹1,758 crore from anchor investors last week by allocating 25.11 crore equity shares at a price of ₹70 per share.

The Bajaj Group company has set a price band of ₹66-70 per share for its IPO, which will close on September 9 and the tentative listing dates of stocks on the BSE and NSE is September 16. The public issue comprises a fresh issue of ₹3,560 crore and an offer for sale of ₹3,000 crore by parent Bajaj Finance. On the upper end of the price band, the total issue size is ₹6,560 crore and the market capitalisation of the Bajaj Group company is estimated at around ₹58,300 crore.

The housing finance company intends to use the net proceeds from the issuance of fresh equities to augment its capital base to meet future business requirements of the company towards onward lending.

In September 2023, the RBI released the list of 15 NBFCs in the upper layer under scale-based regulation for NBFCs. As per the RBI norms, Bajaj Housing Finance shares must be listed by September 2025 under the current regulatory established by the central bank.

Founded in 1926, the financial services businesses of the Bajaj Group are primarily carried out through subsidiaries of Bajaj Finserv - one of which is Bajaj Finance, the parent company of BHFL. The BHFL offers financial solutions such as home loans, loans against property, lease rental discounting, and developer financing to individuals and corporate entities to purchase and renovate homes and commercial spaces.