IRFC makes lacklustre debut on bourses

Shares of Indian Railway Finance Corporation (IRFC) made a lacklustre debut at the bourses on Friday. The scrip closed at Rs 24.80 on the NSE, down 4.83%, against the issue price of Rs 26 per share.

Earlier, the initial public offer (IPO) of the company got subscribed 3.49 times on the final day of bidding on January 20. The offer received bids for 4,35,22,57,225 shares against 1,24,75,05,993 shares on offer.

IRFC is a dedicated financing arm of the Indian Railways for mobilising funds from domestic as well as overseas markets.

Qualified Institutional Buyers (QIBs) category was subscribed 3.78 times, non-institutional investors 2.67 times and retail individual investors (RIIs) 3.66 times.

The price range for the offer was fixed at Rs 25-26 per share. The company had raised a little over Rs 1,398 crore from anchor investors.

IRFC’s primary objective is to meet the predominant portion of ‘extra budgetary resources’ requirement of the Indian Railways through market borrowing at the most competitive rates and terms.

DAM Capital Advisors, HSBC Securities and Capital Markets (India), ICICI Securities and SBI Capital Markets were the managers to the offer.

On the other hand, the benchmark BSE Sensex traded 92 points, or 0.20%, up at 46,966 in the early trade.