NTPC roadshows in six US cities

National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) will focus on attracting US institutional investors for its initial public offer that opens on October 7.

In the foreign leg, the company brass would be meeting potential investors in as many as six US cities including San Francisco, Denver, Houston, Boston, New York and Washington.

Singapore, Tokyo and London are the other cities abroad where investors are proposed to be targeted during the roadshows starting on September 27. The domestic leg was kicked off on Wednesday, with the first roadshow held in Mumbai and was followed by one in Chennai today and Delhi on Friday.

Apart from a fresh issue of 432.91 million shares, an equal number of shares, accounting for 5.2 per cent of the central power utility's paid-up capital, is proposed to be disinvested by the government. Post-issue, the government's holding in the company will come down to 89.5 per cent of the expanded capital of the company.

The offer will be for 866.83 million shares, amounting to 10.5 per cent of the post-issue expanded capital, with a face value of Rs 10 each.

The shares will be offered in a price band of Rs 52 to Rs 62. At the upper level of the price band, the IPO is expected to raise Rs 5,369 crore, the second largest public offer after TCS, which received a record Rs 5,420 crore.

The company plans to offer a maximum 50 per cent of the shares on offer to qualified institutional buyers (QIBs) while the rest would be allotted to high net worth individuals and retailers in equal proportion of 25 per cent each.

Around 41.3 million shares are being offered to the public while the balance 20.6 million are being offered to employees, as per the draft prospectus filed with Sebi.

The book running lead managers to the issue are ICICI Securities, Enam Financial Consultants and Kotak Mahindra Capital Company.

Finance minister P Chidambaram had announced in the budget that the government would piggy back the NTPC IPO to off-load 5.2 per cent shares.