Nostalgia & hope at Reliance Petro listing

Usually at 9 AM, Dalal Street is barely stirred awake. On Thursday, however, with the RPL issue's listing ceremony scheduled for 9:15 AM, the street was up early; traffic was regulated, outdoor vans of TV channels neatly parked and employees and investors trooped into witness a primary market euphoria.

BSE's first floor convention centre was decked with flowers - jasmines and marigold. The gong, on which the opening bell is rung, usually the only centre piece at listing ceremonies was marginally displaced by a large picture of a smiling Dhirubhai Ambani.

Mukesh Ambani took the podium and described the Reliance journey leading to the 50 times oversubscribed issue to an audience comprising the who's who of investment bankers, Reliance employees, BSE staff and media.

Ambani said the interest in the issue was a tribute to his father, as his wife Nita Ambani nodded proudly.

Lead running book managers to the issue took to the stage, led by Vallabh Bhansali of Enam recounting the past projects and public issues of Reliance. Bhansali said that Ambani's vision was always not understood initially by people.

Nimesh Kampani of J M Morgan Stanley, Rajnikant Patel of BSE, Hemendra Kothari of DSP Merrill Lynch all spoke about the excitement surrounding the RPL issue and the anticipation of what level it would list at.

Sitting among the audience area were heavyweight bankers and fund managers. Sanjay Nayyar of Citigroup, Narendra Nagpal of Deutsche Equities, Ravi Kapoor of Citigroup, Jitender Balakrishnan of IDBI Bank, Amit Chandra, the newly appointed head of Merril Lynch India, were all present to witness the listing ceremony.

Interestingly, the event ran ahead of time, prompting the compere to draw parallels to the way in which Reliance projects are completed ahead of schedule.

As the floor was thrown open to the audience, an old employee of BSE and a Reliance investor, A J Shah, recounted the first Reliance issue.

As the exchange was not computerised then, the applications had to be entered manually and Mukesh Ambani, who was a fresh engineering graduate, brought along a calculator and worked overnight to fix the allotment ratio.

"At that time there weren't any street shops that were open at night. I understand that Mukesh had to go to Churchgate and have a vada pav for dinner," Shah told the audience. This time around, Mukesh has lot more on his plate.