Realty major DLF's offer for sale of 8.1 crore equity shares to institutional investors, drawing a strong response, got oversubscribed by 1.3 times. The share sale, priced between Rs 227 and Rs 230 a share, saw bids of about 15 million shares, nearly twice that on offer.
The funds raised through the IPP route will help the company to retire some of its debt, pegged around Rs 20,000 crore and in bringing down its promoter holding from 78.58% to 75% to achieve SEBI’s public shareholding requirement. IPP, so far, has been the preferred route for increasing the public shareholding by real estate companies, including Godrej Properties and Prestige Estates.
DLF mandated 8 banks for the institutional placement sale. The selected banks are Bank of America-Merrill Lynch, Deutsche Bank, JPMorgan and Standard Chartered, along with CLSA, HSBC, Kotak, and UBS to handle the sale.
DLF, founded by billionaire Kushal Pal Singh, has a land bank of 10,255 acres, the biggest in the real estate sector. At its peak, its debt pile stood at Rs 23,000 crore.
