Punj Lloyd lines up maiden float

Engineering & construction company Punj Lloyd (PLL) is planning to enter the capital markets with an initial public offer (IPO) of 91.72 lakh equity shares of Rs 10 each for cash. The book-built offer will comprise a fresh issue of 83.55 lakh equity shares and an offer for sale of 8.17 lakh shares.

The company has appointed ICICI Securities, Citigroup Global Markets India, DSP Merrill Lynch and Kotak Mahindra Capital Company as the book running lead managers to the issue.

One lakh shares shall be made available on a proportionate basis to the employees of the company. The price band for the issue has been fixed between Rs 600 and Rs 700 per equity share. The issue opens for subscription on December 13 and closes on December 16.

The offer constitutes 17.57 per cent of the fully diluted post issue paid up equity capital of PLL.

"Post issue, the promoters holding in the company would go down to 54 per cent from the existing 67 per cent. And foreign equity holding in the company would come down to 24 per cent from 28 per cent," said Atul Punj, chairman and managing director, PLL.

Temasek, Standard Chartered, Reliance Capital, and New York Life are major investors in PLL. Energy and infrastructure are the key sectors into which the company is actively involved in. For the year ended March 2005, PLL registered total revenue of Rs 1,900 crore. The company has got an order booking of Rs 7,000 crore and order backlog of 3,700 crore.

The offer is being made through 100 per cent book building process wherein at least 60 per cent of the net offer will be allocated to Qualified Institutional Buyers (QIB).