Debutants stole the thunder in 2017

Mumbai: The year gone by turned out be the best year for the primary markets in terms of both fund raising as well as the performance of the newly-listed stocks.

As many as 36 firms tapped the primary market with their IPOs mobilising over Rs 67,000 crore. Out of them, 66 per cent are currently trading with a hefty premium over their issue price with investors in seven companies enjoying a return of over 100 per cent since listing.

Apex Frozen Food gained the most with its share price zooming 379.34 per cent followed by Shankara Building Products and Avenue Supermarts that have soared 286.53 per cent and 294.65 per cent respectively.

Others like Astron Paper & Board, Dixon Technologies, Salasar Techno Engineering and PSP Projects posted gains in the range of 137 per cent to 180 per cent.

“In 2012 and 2013, the sentiment in the primary market remained largely subdued and lot of companies looking for growth capital had to turn towards private equity investors. Most of the private equity firms seek to exit their investment in 3-5 years and 2017 coincided with their target. With a buoyant secondary market and ample amount of liquidity provided by domestic investors, they were able to comfortably exit their position through offer for sale under the IPO route,” said B. Madhuprasad, chairman, Keynote Corporate Services.  

Looking ahead, he said: “Going by the number of draft offer documents filed with both BSE and NSE, we can expect atleast 50-60 SME IPOs in 2018. As far as the IPO’s in the main board are concerned, we are unlikely to see the repeat of 2017. However, we will see lot of rights issues from large corporates.”