Adani Wilmar IPO opens on Thursday to raise up to Rs 3,600 crore

Edible oil major Adani Wilmar will on Thursday hit the capital market to raise up to Rs 3,600 crore through its Initial Public Offer (IPO).

The proceeds of the public issue will be used to fund capital expenditure, reduce debt and for acquisitions as the company seeks to become India's biggest food and FMCG company.

The public issue, comprising fresh equity shares, will open for subscription on January 27 and close on January 31. Price band is Rs 218-230 per share.

Adani Wilmar, which sells cooking oils and some other food products under the Fortune brand, is a 50:50 joint venture between business conglomerate Adani group and Singapore-based Wilmar.

On Tuesday, Adani Wilmar Ltd had raised Rs 940 crore from anchor investors.

The company has decided to allocate around 4.09 crore equity shares to anchor investors at Rs 230 apiece.

Investors can bid for a minimum of 65 equity shares and in multiples thereof. Half of the issue size has been reserved for qualified institutional buyers, 35 per cent for retail investors and the remaining 15 per cent for non-institutional investors.

Post-IPO, the public shareholding will be 12 per cent and the remaining 88 per cent will be equally held by the two promoters.

As per the Red Herring Prospectus (RHP), the company proposes to utilise Rs 1,900 crore for capital expenditure, Rs 1,058.9 crore for repayment/prepayment of its borrowings and Rs 450 crore for funding of strategic acquisitions and investments.

On the financial front, Adani Wilmar Ltd's revenue increased to Rs 24,957.28 crore for the six months ended September in the current fiscal, as against Rs 16,273.73 crore in the corresponding period of the previous year.

During the same period, profit grew to Rs 357.13 crore from Rs 288.78 crore.

The company posted a revenue of Rs 37,195.65 crore and profit of Rs 728 crore for the full 2020-21 fiscal.

Apart from cooking oils, Adani Wilmar sells food products like rice, wheat flour, and sugar. It also sells non-food products like soap, handwash, and sanitisers.

In the draft red herring prospectus, the company had proposed to raise up to Rs 4,500 crore but later cut the size of the IPO.

Addressing a virtual press conference on January 21, Adani Wilmar CEO and Managing Director Angshu Mallick had said the company would focus on increasing its market share in edible oils segment and grow the food business.

"We are one of the fastest growing food and FMCG companies," he had said and expressed confidence in becoming the biggest in this space in the coming years.

On the reason for reducing the IPO size, Adani Wilmar Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Shrikant Kanhere had said it was done to make the public issue more optimistic and efficient in terms of capital structure.

Currently, six Adani group companies are listed on the domestic bourses.

Apart from Adani Enterprises, other listed ones are Adani Transmission, Adani Green Energy, Adani Power, Adani Total Gas, and Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone.