Just Dial Limited which had tapped the capital markets with its offer for sale listed today on the NSE and BSE. The company had a flying start and closed with gains of over 15%. The offer for sale was in a price band of Rs 470-543 and was issued at Rs 530. There was a discount of Rs 47 for retail investors.

The issue had a few firsts about it. The retail discount was Rs 47 or 10% at the floor price and 8.86% at the issue price. This is the highest discount given to retail. Secondly the company’s promoters had to offer a safety net to retail investors and also deposit the entire amount upfront in an escrow account. Thirdly the QIB portion was 75% and the only reason why the company chose to do so was because it did not want to give a higher allocation to retail and therefore block a higher amount in the safety net.

The good part is that the regulator has been able to achieve the twin objective of ensuring that the primary market issue does not fall flat on its face post the listing as has been the case so far with more than 3/4th of the issues trading at a discount, and secondly ensured that retail investors make money post listing.

Looking at the first day’s success of Just Dial where everybody whether it be QIB’s, HNI’s or retail have all made money on day one. I believe this would be a case after a very long time that people across categories have made money. Even the mega issue from MCX which saw HNI category subscribed by some 150 times, only those people who sold in the beginning made money. Fortunately in the case of Just Dial it was not so and everybody has made money.

From the table above one can see that the weighted average of the day’s trade which was Rs 611.46 on the BSE was identical to the close of Rs 611.45. Similarly the weighted average on the NSE was Rs 611.48 which was marginally lower than the close of Rs 612.35. The volumes on the two exchanges combined were 123.27 lac shares which were 70.45% of the IPO size of 174.97 lac shares. The delivery volume on day one was 40.36 lac shares which was 32.75% of the traded volume and 23.07% of the IPO size.

The share has given decent returns to retail investors who have made Rs 128 based on the weighted average of the day’s trade. This translated into a decent 26% return for retail investors considering the discount. Without the discount the return is 15%.

After a really long timeI would be able to conclude that the listing has been a success and investors have made money post the issue. Let’s hope better sense prevails in the time to come.