PowerGrid Infrastructure Investment Trust or PGInvit which had tapped the capital markets with its fresh issue and offer for sale of Rs 7,735 crs listed on the bourses. The fresh issue was for Rs 4993.48 crs while the offer for sale was for Rs 2741.51 crs. The issue was open from Thursday the 29th of April and closed on Monday the 3rd of May. The price band was Rs 99-100. The company allotted 34,80,74,100 units to 33 investors comprising of 47 entities. The top allocation was done to CPP Investment Board of 8 cr units or 22.98% of the anchor size. Three investors were allocated an identical 4 cr units or 11.49% of the allocation. They included Capital Income Builder and two Indian mutual funds, SBI and HDFC. This means that the top four investors were allocated 57.45% of the anchor allocation.

There were just two buckets. In the QIB category the issue was subscribed 4.63 times while the Non-institution category it was subscribed 5.07 times. The overall issue was subscribed 4.83 times. There were over 46,200 forms. The average application size was about 21.20 lacs. The issue including anchor portion received bids for over 24,000 crs against the issue size of 7,735 crs.

The discovered price was Rs 104 on both the exchanges. At the discovered price, the traded volume was 2.69 lac units at BSE and 92.18 lac units at NSE. The high of the day was Rs 104.97, low was Rs 102.84 and close Rs 102.98 on BSE. The gain was Rs 2.98 or 2.98%. On NSE, the high of the day was Rs 104.90, low was Rs 102.75 and close was Rs 103.05. The gain was Rs 3.05 or 3.05%.

The traded volume was 468.62 lac units on the two exchanges combined. This was 6% of the IPO size of 7734.99 lac units and 11% of the non-anchor portion of 4254.25 lac units. Delivery volume was 417.54 lac shares which was 89.10% of the traded volume. It was 5.40% of the IPO size and 9.81% of the non-anchor portion. Weighted average of the days trade was Rs 103.55 on BSE and Rs 103.69 on NSE. On expected lines, there were no names in the institutional trade’s category on BSE or NSE.

There was an event which had me taken by surprise. The application lot size was 1,100 units or Rs 1.10 lac at the top end of the band while the trading lot was 100 units or effectively Rs 10,000 on listing day. While SEBI has been maintaining that INVIT is not a product for retail investors, it seems quite strange and contradictory that retail investors do not understand the product and hence the ticket size for application is Rs 1.1 lac. However, when it comes to trading, retail investors understand the product and hence trading lot size is Rs 10,000. In the case of the SME exchange, the lot size which is greater than 1 lac remains the same until the share migrates to the main board. Here in the case of INVIT, the change happens on listing. One would like to understand the rationale behind the move and appreciate why such a thing has been done. One wonders whether the idea is to debar retail investors the benefit of getting allotment at par or something more than that. Hope the regulator throws some light on this issue on some day.

The issue has done well for itself on day one. With the first pay-out due only post the September quarterly results, the next event of importance would be RBI MPC (Monetary policy committee) meeting and whether there are any changes to the interest rates.

Expect the rates of this instrument to drift from hereon.