Happiest Minds IPO oversubscribed 151 times on final day

The initial public offering (IPO) of information technology (IT) services firm Happiest Minds Technologies, set to raise about Rs 700 crore, was subscribed 150.9 times (or 14,998%) on day three, according to stock exchange data.

The public issue received over 3.5 billion bids against an IPO size of a little over 23 million shares, as per NSE data as of 5 PM market close on Wednesday.

The portion for retail investors was oversubscribed 25.4 times (or 2,438%).

The portion for non institutional investors was oversubscribed by 154.1 times (or 15,312%), and that for qualified institutional buyers was oversubscribed by 37.9 times (or 3,689%).

"Happiest Minds Technologies Ltd Initial public offer includes an offer for sales of Rs 592 crore and fresh issues of Rs 110 crore. IPO has seen good traction from retail participation... we expect this to increase gradually at the end of the IPO. We have a SUBSCRIBE rating to the IPO,” Yash Gupta, equity research associate at Angel Broking, told TechCircle earlier in the day.

The 2011-founded IT firm received the SEBI nod for a public listing last month. The Ashok Soota-led firm opened its IPO for retail investors from September 7 to 9. 

According to its red herring prospectus, the Bengaluru-based company will not receive any proceeds from the offer for sale. The company reported total revenue of Rs 714 crore in sales for the financial year ended March 31, 2020, up 18.6% from a year earlier. Its profit grew five times to Rs 71 crore for the same period.

On Friday, it raised Rs 315.9 crore from a consortium of 25 anchor investors that included the government of Singapore, Goldman Sachs India Fund, Kuwait Investment Auth Fund, Nomura Funds Ireland and SBI Life Insurance.

The anchors scooped up a total of 1,90,30,541 shares at Rs 166 per share, which included a premium of Rs 164 per share, the company said in a separate stock exchange filing.

Happiest Minds works with enterprise customers to enable digital transformation services using data analytics, artificial intelligence, cognitive computing, internet of things, cloud, security, blockchain and automation.

It primarily serves US customers in sectors such as retail, edtech, industrial, financial services, hi-tech, engineering research and development, manufacturing, travel, media and entertainment.

For the period between financial years 2017-18 and 2019-20, Happiest Minds generated most of its sales from the US market. The country made up 73.5% of its revenue in FY18, 75.5% in FY19 and 77.5% in FY20. The figures are higher than those of mainstream IT firms in the US market, which range between 45% and 60%.

The NIFTY IT index, which tracks all IT firm stocks listed on the NSE, on Wednesday closed at 18,261.50 levels, marginally down 0.73%.