VA Tech Wabag Limited which had tapped the capital markets with an IPO in a price band of Rs 1230 to Rs 1310 for an Rs 5 paid up share was oversubscribed. The issue had opened on Wednesday the 22nd of September and closed for QIB’s on Friday the 24th September. The issue closed for HNI’s and retail investors on Monday the 27th of September. The issue comprised of a fresh issue of Rs 125 crs and an offer for sale of 26, 53,383 shares. The issue was very well received and the HNI category was subscribed just over 100 times.

The company is in the business of water and waste water management and there was lot of hype created about the same. It was expected that the retail portion would be well subscribed but it appears that the response from retail was substantially lower than expected. Probably the absolute price of Rs 1300 per share put of the retail investors and therefore the issue was not substantially oversubscribed in retail category. The valuations per se were fine but when you say that Rs 1 lakh is only for 75 shares, psychologically it looks or feels expensive.

Details of the subscription are as follows: –