Aditya Birla Sun Life AMC allots shares worth Rs 789 cr to anchor investors

Aditya Birla Sun Life Asset Management Company (AMC) on Tuesday allotted shares worth Rs 789 crores to anchor investors. The AMC allotted nearly half of the anchor investor portion to eight domestic mutual funds. The domestic funds which were allotted shares include ICICI Prudential, HDFC Mutual Fund, SBI, Axis, Invesco India, UTI, Kotak and Edelweiss. The other prominent anchor investors include Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, HSBC, Morgan Stanley Asia, amongst others.

Aditya Birla AMC is looking at valuations of Rs 20,500 crore in its initial public offering (IPO)—the fourth by a domestic mutual fund house.

The price band is Rs 695-712 per share. At the upper band, the issue size would be Rs 2,768 crore.

The IPO will be a secondary share sale by promoters Aditya Birla Capital (ABCL) and Sun Life AMC.

The domestic partner is selling 2.85 million shares–less than one per cent of its stake–to raise about Rs 203 crore. Meanwhile, Canadian firm Sun Life will divest 12.56 per cent holding, or 36 million shares, to raise Rs 2,565 crore at the top end of the price band.

Currently, ABCL holds a 51 per cent stake, while Sun Life holds the remaining 49 per cent. Following the IPO, the total promoter stake in the fund house will fall from 100 per cent at present to 86.5 per cent.

Aditya Birla AMC is the country’s largest non-banking affiliated fund house in terms of assets under management (AUM) and fourth overall.

For the quarter ended June 2021, Aditya Birla AMC had an average AUM of Rs 2.84 trillion. It had reported a net profit of Rs 155 crore on revenues of Rs 336 crore.

UTI AMC was the last MF to come out with an IPO. Its stock has more than doubled since listing a year ago.

Given their sound fundamentals and return on equity (RoE) ratio, investors have been bullish on AMC stocks. Analysts said the companies in the space have high growth potential given the country’s low penetration of financial products. However, regulatory tightening and focus on lowering costs are seen as headwinds for the industry.

The IPO opens on September 29 and concludes on October 1.

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