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India’s DLF Files for IPO, Could Raise Over $2 Bln | ASHARQ AL-AWSAT English Archive 2005 -2017
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MUMBAI (Reuters) – Indian real estate developer DLF Ltd. has filed a prospectus for an initial public offering after pulling a planned issue last year, and one banker said the sale of 10.2 percent of the company could raise more than $2 billion.

The revival of the IPO, which would be India’s biggest ever, comes after successful listings for Parsvnath Developers Ltd. and Sobha Developers Ltd. in late 2006.

Last year New Delhi-based DLF called off an IPO of 12.8 percent of its equity, which had been expected to raise up to $3.5 billion, after a sharp fall in the stock market, which has since recovered. The main index hit a record high on Wednesday.

Under the revised plan, all shares in the IPO would be new equity and there would not be a pre-IPO placement for overseas investors, unlike in the earlier plan, a DLF spokesperson said.

While one banker involved in the IPO said it could raise over $2 billion, others were reluctant to discuss values.

“I don’t want to hazard a guess on how much we would be raising since we have not started the pre-marketing,” said a banker associated with the issue.

Based on the $2 billion figure, it would be India’s biggest IPO and give DLF a market capitalisation of around $20 billion, well ahead of the next largest real estate firm, Unitech Ltd , which is valued at $8.5 billion.

India’s biggest IPOs to date have been National Thermal Power Corp., Tata Consultancy Services Ltd. and the recently concluded Cairn India Ltd offer, which all raised slightly under $1.2 billion.

Lehman Brothers, a new entrant into Indian investment banking, has joined the list of managers for the IPO, but Morgan Stanley and Enam Financial, which were arrangers when DLF attempted to float last May, are not part of the latest effort.

DSP Merrill Lynch and Kotak Mahindra Capital Co. Ltd are,the global co-ordinators and lead managers.

Other book-running lead managers are Deutsche Bank, Citigroup, ICICI Securities and UBS. SBI Capital Markets Ltd is a co-bookrunner.

Investment banking revenues in India rose 23 percent in2006 to $413 million as companies raised record funds and bought other firms, according to Dealogic. Citigroup topped the Indian table with revenue of $44 million.

Equity capital market raising was the top money spinner, accounting for 73 percent of fees in a year when the value of IPOs surged 186 percent to $6.9 billion.