Larsen & Toubro Infrastructure Finance Company's Rs 200 crore retail bonds issue has been oversubscribed, belying fears of a lukewarm response from investors, a top company official said today.
"I do see some oversubscription, (but) I can't say how much. I do see some small oversubscription," L&T Infra Chief Executive Suneet Maheshwari told PTI on the sidelines of the Indian Private Investors Conference here today.
L&T had come out with its Rs 200 crore retail tax saving bonds issue last month, with a green shoe option to retain an additional Rs 500 crore in case of oversubscription.
Maheshwari said L&T's decision to extend the closing date for the issue by nearly a fortnight to November 15 has paid off.
"We had extended the date because a lot of investors had locked their money in Coal India (IPO) and we have seen the benefit of it (extension of closing date)," he added.
L&T's peer in the infrastructure finance space, IDFC, had fallen short of its target of raising Rs 600 crore through a similar issue last month even after extending the deadline. IDFC only managed to raise Rs 436 crore from its issue.
However, the country's largest lender State Bank of India, which had launched a retail bond issue of its own at the same time, sans the tax saving advantage, saw the offer oversubscribed by a whopping 17 times.
Maheshwari termed the response to L&T Infra Finance's issue as "good" and added, "We think we will cross Rs 200 crore, (by) how much you will know on the 16th."
