Teamlease Services Limited which had tapped the capital markets with its primary issue for Rs 150 crs and an offer for sale of 32,19,733 shares in a price band of Rs 785-850 made a decent debut gaining 20%. These gains were not without hiccups as the discovered price at Rs 860 against the issue price of Rs 850 was manipulated. The traded volume at the discovered price was ridiculously low with a mere 13,044 shares traded on the BSE and 69,678 shares on the NSE. Who manipulated and what was the purpose will remain unclear until the exchanges and SEBI investigate who sold shares at a price of Rs 860 when the grey market was trading at a comfortable Rs 200 plus even a couple of days before the issue listed.

The only logical explanation was that a group of persons was interested in cornering shares and therefore with the discovered price of Rs 860 ensured two things. Firstly there would be willing sellers from the HNI category as the issue which was subscribed 185 times in the HNI category cost Rs 211-215 per share for the leveraged investor. Here the upper circuit at Rs 860 plus 20% would mean Rs 1032, a discount to the leveraged investor’s cost price. Secondly with mayhem one day before listing on the bourses where the SENSEX lost 800 points, investors would be more than willing to sell.

The first half hour of trade after price discovery resulted in an average traded price of Rs906.40 on the BSE with 8.53 lac shares being traded while on NSE it was Rs 906.40 with 32 lac shares traded. Clearly the discovered price was manipulated and the regulators need to see how and why the same happened.

Traded volume on the BSE was 13.15 lacs while it was 54.98 lac shares on the NSE. When looked at the discovered price volume it indeed confirms the doubt of manipulation. One needs to see the volume in other issues to get a sense. The delivery percentage was 21.38% on the BSE and a significantly higher 29.89% on the NSE. A combined total of 19.24 lac shares were delivered which is 28.24% of the traded volume. Significantly this is 38.61% of the issue size and 705 of the non-anchor issue size. Anchors allotment is locked in for 30 days. The weighted average for the day’s trade was Rs 942.94 on the BSE and Rs 948.98 on the NSE. Even at the average price there was a gain of between Rs 90-100 on the issue price of Rs 850.

The closing price was almost at the day’s high at Rs 1021.90 on the BSE and Rs 1022.85 on the NSE. There was delivery based buying on both exchanges with Nomura buying 1,16,397 shares at Rs 932.22 on the BSE and 3,96,220 shares at Rs 936.11 on the NSE. Further Goldman Sachs bought 2,37,182 shares at Rs 1004.85 on the NSE. This effectively means that a total of 7,49,799 shares were bought by institutions on day one. Their buying quantity was 39% of the delivery on day one. This purchase definitely helped the share and part of the strength could be attributed to buying interest.

End of the day good ending to a poor story on account of a high degree of manipulation. Fit case for investigation and findings if unhealthy must be made public with the guilty being punished for the future good of the capital markets.