Investors of Prince Pipes and Fittings initial public offering (IPO) may be staring at a tepid listing. Going by trends in the market for unofficial trading of unlisted stocks, Prince Pipes could end up being the last and fifth issue of Calendar 2019 to list at a discount.
The stock is expected to be listed on the bourses on December 31.
Grey market transactions signal tepid demand for shares of Prince Pipes, which are currently trading at a discount of up to Rs 12 a share. If these trends prevail till the listing day, the stock could debut at a discount of up to 7 per cent to the issue price.
Dinesh Gupta, Partner at UnlistedZone, who deals in unlisted stocks, said Prince Pipes shares are trading in the negative ahead of their stock market debut. “The market discount is approximately Rs 10-12 per share. We suggest ‘avoid’ as of now,” he said.
Calendar 2019 turned out to be quite good for IPO investors with 11 of 15 mainboard public issues debuting at a premium and four listing at a discount to their issue prices.
Issues in the latter category included Spandana Sphoorty Financial, MSTC, Sterling and Wilson Solar and Xelpmoc Design & Tech. Prince Pipes could be the fifth.
Sagar Shah of Ascent Wealth said the Prince Pipes shares are trading at zero premium. “Most likely, there won’t be much of gain. It could be a discount listing as well,”
Most analysts on Dalal Street had given ‘subscribe’ rating to the IPO. It was subscribed 2.22 times during the book-building process. The portion reserved for retail investors was subscribed 1.90 times, the quota for non-institutional investors was subscribed 1.21 times and qualified institutional investors’ quote 3.56 times.
The company claimed the IPO witnessed demand for shares worth Rs 778.21 crore against the total issue size of Rs 350 crore, excluding the anchor portion, making it the last successful issue of 2019.
Santosh Meena, Senior Analyst at TradingBells, said despite fair valuation and the ongoing bull run in domestic stocks, Prince pipes IPO failed to draw investor interest.
“There was concern over pledged shares of promoters and related party transactions. It is tough to predict the exact listing for a small IPO like Prince Pipes, but looking at its subscription figure, it might see a tepid listing,” Meena said.
The Prince Pipes issue came on the heels of hugely successful IPOs of IRCTC, CSB Bank and Ujjivan Small Finance Bank, each of which saw massive subscriptions and strong listing gains on the bourses.
IRCTC was subscribed 112 times and it debuted at a 101 per cent premium while Ujjivan Small Finance Bank was subscribed 166 times and got listed at a 57 per cent premium over issue price. CSB Bank was subscribed 87 times and it enhanced investor wealth by 41 per cent on debut.
Source: Economic Times
