Ruchi Soya’s FPO Withdrawal Window Sees Foreign Investors Pulling Out The Most

By the time the withdrawal window for Ruchi Soya Industries Ltd.’s follow-on public offer closed, foreign portfolio investors had withdrawn most of their bids to purchase shares. Whereas demand from high net-worth and small retail investors saw only a minor pullback.

In total, 14,583 applications amounting to 97.4 lakh shares were withdrawn as on March 30, according to the data on the BSE. Overall subscription fell to 3.39 times compared with 3.6 times on March 28 when the issue closed. The FPO had received total bids for 17.60 crore shares against the 4.89 crore shares on offer.

The Rs 4,300-crore offer ran into trouble on closing day when the Securities and Exchange Board of India ordered the company to allow withdrawal of bids citing circulation of SMSs that sought to advertise the offer in misleading and fraudulent ways. SEBI ordered a two-day withdrawal window to be opened for all investor categories except anchor investors. The window closed late evening March 30.

As per the latest data available on the BSE,

• FPIs withdrew bids for 72.43 lakh shares of the 74.51 lakh shares they had bid for.

• No bids were withdrawn by domestic financial institutions and mutual funds.

• HNIs withdrew bids for 10.46 lakh shares of the 8.36 crore shares bid for.

• Retail investors withdrew bids for 5.69 lakh shares from the total 2.19 crore shares bid for.

The finalisation of the basis for allocation of the shares will be done on April 5 taking into account the remaining bids.

Ruchi Soya’s shares closed on Wednesday at Rs 977.4 apiece, up 3.43%.