Sona Comstar raises INR 2,498 Crores, 45% of the total IPO size, in India’s 3rd largest ever IPO anchor book

 

42 marquee investors participated across investor categories

11^th June, 2021

Sona BLW Precision Forgings Limited (Sona Comstar), one of India’s leading automotive technology companies, has raised the 3^rd largest ever IPO anchor book in India at INR 2,498 crores, 45% of the total IPO size of INR 5,550 crores. 42 marquee investors participated in the anchor book including 24 foreign portfolio investors, 11 domestic mutual funds, 5 life insurance companies and 2 AIFs. The company informed the bourses that it has allocated 8.6 crore shares at INR 291 per share on Friday, June 11, 2021 to anchor investors. The bid/offer period in relation to its initial public offering of Equity Shares will open on Monday, June 14, 2021 and close on Wednesday, June 16, 2021.

Government of Singapore Investment Corporate (GIC) and Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) together made a large investment of INR 401.5 crores in the anchor book.

Marquee foreign portfolio investors such as Nomura Asset Management, Fidelity, Eastspring Investments, Goldman Sachs Asset Management, Amundi participated significantly in the anchor book.

Marquee domestic investors include SBI MF, Axis MF, Birla MF, HDFC MF, Mirae Asset MF, SBI Life Insurance, Kotak MF, Kotak Life Insurance, Birla Life Insurance, Max Life Insurance, Bharti Axa, Invesco MF, Canara Robeco MF, Sundaram MF, IIFL, Bank of Baroda MF and Edelweiss amongst others.

Niche global investors with EV investing experience including Thornburg Investment Management and RWC also participated with keen interest.

Sona Comstar, a Blackstone backed company, is primarily engaged in designing, manufacturing and supplying highly engineered, mission critical automotive systems and components to automotive OEMs. Sona Comstar is a leading supplier to the fast-growing global Electric Vehicle (EV) markets and derived 13.8% revenue from the Battery EV market and 26.7% from the Micro Hybrid / Hybrid market in FY21. Its global market share of BEV differential assemblies in calendar year 2020 was 8.7%. The company is among the top ten players globally in the differential bevel gear market and in the starter motor market on the basis of respective volumes supplied to its end segments in calendar year 2020 and has been gaining global market share across products. According to the Ricardo Report, it serves 6 of the top 10 global PV OEMs, 3 out of top 10 global CV OEMs and 7 out of top 8 global tractor OEMs by volumes. The company has strong R&D, engineering and technological capabilities in precision forging, mechanical and electrical systems, as well as base and application software development. It is diversified across geographies, products, vehicle segments and customers. According to the Crisil Report, the company has the highest operating EBITDA margin, PAT margin, ROCE and ROE in FY20 as compared to top 10 listed auto component manufacturers in India by market capitalization and has consistently delivered more than 26% EBITDA margin and more than 35% average ROE each year over FY19-21. Its operating income growth over FY16-20 has exceeded the average of the same peer set.

Kotak Mahindra Capital Company Limited, Credit Suisse Securities (India) Private Limited, JM Financial Limited, J.P. Morgan India Private Limited and Nomura Financial Advisory and Securities (India) Private Limited are the Book Running Lead Managers (“BRLMs”) to the Offer.

 

IPO Details

The total Offer size is up to INR 5,550 crores with a fresh issuance of equity shares, aggregating up to INR 300 crores and an offer for sale of equity shares aggregating up to INR 5,250 crores, by the Selling Shareholder, namely, Singapore VII Topco III Pte. Ltd. The Company intends to utilize the net proceeds from the fresh issue to repay/prepay approximately INR 241.12 crores of its identified borrowings, besides general corporate purposes.

The Offer is being made in terms of Rule 19(2)(b) of the Securities Contracts (Regulation) Rules, 1957, as amended, read with Regulation 31 of the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Issue of Capital and Disclosure Requirements) Regulations, 2018, as amended (“SEBI ICDR Regulations”). The Offer is being made in accordance with Regulation 6(2) of the SEBI ICDR Regulations, and through the Book Building Process wherein not less than 75% of the Offer shall be available for allocation to qualified institutional buyers, not more than 15% of the Offer shall be available for allocation on a proportionate basis to non-institutional bidders and not more than 10% of the Offer shall be available for allocation to retail individual bidders.