RPL breaks record as its issue gets subscribed 51.47 times

Mumbai, Apr 21 (UNI) The initial public offer (IPO) of Reliance Petroleum (RPL) has broken all records as the issue was subscribed 51.47 times of the shares offered in the IPO and received applications worth around Rs 1,43,500 crore, almost double the previous highest collection of Rs 72,737 crore ONGC received in its issue in 2004.

The qualified institutional buyer (QIB) portion of the issue received 68.2 times subscription, the high net worth individuals' (HNI) portion 60 times and the retail individual investors' portion 15.2 times. The issue has got 2.13 million retail applications.

So far NTPC had received the highest number of retail applications at 1.4 million followed by TCS at 1.18 million.

The maximum bids have been made at Rs 62 - the upper end of the band of Rs 57-62 per share. The company sold shares through nine investment banks, including Citigroup and the local joint ventures of Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley.

Analysts said the huge success of the IPO was a crowning glory for Mukesh Ambani. For a greenfield project, which had nothing to show on the ground, the promoters' track record alone prompted such a huge response, they said.

RPL, subsidiary of Reliance Industries, was set up to build a refinery and polypropylene plant in the special economic zone of Jamnagar.

RIL has come up with IPO almost after 29 years as the last IPO of Reliance group had hit the market way back in 1977. The RPL issue had hit the market on April 13 and closed today.

The issue is a part of fund raising programme of the company to finance Rs 27,000 crore green-field refinery project with an annual capacity of 29 million tonnes of fuels in equity collaboration with energy giant Chevron Corporation of USA.

Recently, Chevron had purchased five per cent equity worth over Rs 1,300 crore.

The RPL shares are expected to be listed on the stock exchanges between May 5-10.

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