ICICI Pru falls 11% below issue price on debut
Shares of ICICI Prudential Life Insurance Company, which made its debut on the stock market on Thursday, lost more than 11 per cent compared with the issue price, as the overall market sentiment weakened over escalating tensions between India and Pakistan.
On the NSE, the shares ended the day at Rs.295.85, 11.42 per cent lower than the issue price of Rs.334. They made their debut at Rs.330, before losing further ground to touch a low of Rs.295.15.
On the BSE, the shares closed at Rs.297.65 pegging the market capitalisation at Rs.42,722.42 crore.
Incidentally, the initial public offer (IPO) – a first by an insurance entity – had received a strong response from investors with the issue getting subscribed 10.47 times.
In other words, the IPO received bids worth nearly Rs.46,250 crore. The issue size was about Rs.6,000 crore.
Aggressively priced?
Analysts said that while there was always a view that the offer was aggressively priced, Thursday’s stock price movement was more due to the overall market weakness.
The issue had received a strong response from institutional investors as well with entities such as Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, Nomura, Government of Singapore, Russell Investment, GMO Emerging along with many mutual funds subscribing to the anchor portion of the offer.
