Bharat Highways InvIT IPO Debuts with Slight 1% Gain

Bharat Highways InvIT commenced trading on stock exchanges with its shares opening at Rs 101.10 on the National Stock Exchange, reflecting a modest premium of 1.1% over the issue price of Rs 100 per unit. The infrastructure investment trust's initial public offering, which was entirely comprised of a fresh issue of 25 crore shares, was well received by investors, subscribing 8 times over on its final day. Institutional and other investors showed strong interest, with subscriptions of 8.92 times and 6.93 times in their respective categories.

The company, which specializes in managing and investing in transportation engineering infrastructure assets, including road projects across India, intends to use the IPO proceeds primarily to provide loans to its project special purpose vehicles (SPVs) for repayment or pre-payment of outstanding debts. The remaining funds will serve for general corporate purposes.

The IPO, managed by ICICI Securities, Axis Bank, HDFC Bank, and IIFL Securities, had a price band of Rs 98 to Rs 100 per share. The public offering raised a total of Rs 2,500 crore. Ahead of the listing, Bharat Highways InvIT secured Rs 826 crore from anchor investors. The sponsor of the InvIT, Lokesh Builders, part of the GR Group, committed to a 15% subscription of the total post-issue unit capital to satisfy sponsor lock-in requirements. Despite the positive opening, the grey market had shown a mixed response, with shares trading at a slight premium before listing.