GNA Axles Limited which had tapped the market with a fresh issue of 63 lac shares in a price band of Rs 205-207 was overwhelmingly subscribed. The issue was subscribed 54.88 times and received excellent support from all sections. The QIB portion was subscribed 17.18 times, HNI a massive 217.47 times and Retail 11.84 times. There were a total of 2.93 lac applications received.

Earlier the company had allotted 18.30 lac shares to three anchor investors comprising of seven entities. These anchor investors were three mutual funds, Reliance, UTI and HDFC.

The response is indeed heart-warming considering the factors in which this IPO came. Firstly there was the issue from L&T Technology Services Limited which had opened one day before and closed one day before the issue of GNA Axles. Secondly this share would on listing, trade in the ‘trade to trade’ segment for ten days as the issue size is less than Rs 250 crs. Thirdly compared to L&T the promoters of GNA Axles are hardly known. Despite these negatives the response received by the issue from GNA is mind boggling. HNI subscription with funding of 217 times in such a small issue is simply unheard of.

In terms of statistics the issue is indeed interesting. While GNA issue was for Rs 130 crs and received demand for Rs 5,115 crs, the issue from L&T Technology Services was for Rs 894 crs and received subscription worth Rs 1,849 crs. This effectively meant that GNS being 1/7th in size received subscription which was almost three times that of L&T. It also meant that the number of applications were similar at 2.93 lacs against 3.10 lacs.

I believe this is critical material for a case study on the two companies and what went wrong with L&T.

Listing of both these issue would be watched carefully.