SUUTI stake sale in Axis Bank gets lukewarm response from retail investors

SUUTI stake sale in Axis Bank got a lukewarm response from retail investors who subscribed only 21 per cent of the shares on offer on Wednesday. Retail investors, who can invest up to Rs 2 lakh in the offer for sale (OFS), bid for over 16.41 lakh shares, which is 21 per cent of the 77.09 lakh total shares reserved for them, according to the NSE data.

The floor price for the OFS was fixed at Rs 689.52 a share. Institutional investors on the first day of the OFS Tuesday had placed bids for more than 11.69 crore shares, or 2.56 times, against 4.56 crore shares on offer. The bids were worth over Rs 8,000 crore at the floor price.

SUUTI which held 9.56 per cent stake in Axis Bank as on December 2018 looks to offload up to 3 per cent shareholding through the OFS. The Specified Undertaking of the United Trust of India (SUUTI) is selling up to 5.07 crore shares along with an option to retain over-subscription of up to 2.63 crore shares in Axis Bank.

The proceeds from the stake sale would help the government move towards the Rs 80,000-crore disinvestment target set for the current financial year. So far this fiscal, it has raised about Rs 36,000 crore by selling minority stake in CPSEs and exchange-traded fund (ETF) offering. Shares of Axis Bank closed at Rs 697.25 apiece, down 1.22 per cent, on the BSE.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)