Shares of Happiest Minds Technologies today more than doubled in their stock market debut, underscoring strong investor interest in technology companies amid the covid pandemic. The company is led by Ashok Soota, a veteran of India’s nearly $200 billion IT industry who also co-founded larger firm Mindtree Ltd. Soota is also Happiest Minds’ top individual shareholder.
It’s also the second time that 77-year old Soota is leading a company to a successful trading debut. His previous startup, Mindtree, went public in March 2007. That IPO was oversubscribed over 100 times.
The stock opened at ₹351 on BSE and at day’s high rose to ₹395, well above its initial public offering (IPO) price of ₹166. Happiest Minds IPO was bid for nearly 151 times the number of shares on offer.
Happiest Mind shares ended at ₹371, up about 125%.
The Bengaluru-based company derives most of its revenue from fast-growing digital IT services – such as analytics and artificial intelligence- and cloud-enabled services.
Happiest Minds was followed by an IPO from Route Mobile Ltd., a cloud-communication service provider. That sale was oversubscribed more than 73 times last week.
“Investors are realising the resilience of the sector as well as strong demand for IT, post the COVID-19 crisis,” Sneha Poddar, an analyst at Motilal Oswal, told Reuters.
“The fact that Happiest Minds comes from a strong management background also acts as a key positive … as people have seen how Mindtree has performed.”
India’s IT stocks have been among the few sectors to clock gains in 2020, gaining 28% so far this year.
The Indian stock market has seen only a handful of IPOs this year compared with more than a dozen in 2019, as the coronavirus crisis hammered risk appetite.
“A slew of more IPOs like CAMS, UTI AMC, Angel Broking, Chemcon Speciality Chemicals, etc. are likely to open in September. Besides them, Kalyan Jewellers, NCDEX, Barbeque Nation, Burger King, Bajaj Energy, Lodha Developers are some of the names likely to hit the market in CY20,” says Hemang Jani, Head – Equity Strategy, Broking & Distribution, Motilal Oswal Financial Services. (With Agency Inputs)
