Steel City Securities plans to go public this May

Issue size to be between Rs 45 crore and Rs 50 crore

Visakhapatnam-based Steel City Securities Limited (SCSL) has completed the amalgamation process of its three firms for going pubic in May this year.

The company was granted permission by the Andhra Pradesh High Court to merge its three entities "� Steel City Securities, Steel City Capital Services Private Limited and Steel City Holdings.

"The high court permitted us to amalgamate the three firms into a single company "� Steel City Securities Limited," G Raja Gopal Reddy, executive director, Steel City Securities, told Business Standard.

SCSL is a member of both the Bombay Stock Exchange and the National Stock Exchange, and is a depository participant of the National Securities Depository Limited and the Central Depository Services Limited.

The three entities together expect a trading turnover of Rs 20,000 crore this fiscal as against Rs 13,000 crore during the last fiscal.

"Currently, we have 140 branch offices across south India of which 80 per cent of the branches are located in Andhra Pradesh. We have decided to expand our network to mainly northern states by setting up another 160 branches by the end of next fiscal."

"We need around Rs 40 crore to complete our expansion plans. Keeping this in mind, we plan to go in for a public issue in May this year and will be selecting our merchant bankers in a couple of weeks. The issue size will be between Rs 45 and Rs 50 crore. Apart from this, we also plan to keep Rs10 crore aside to start the trading margins, which will help us finance our members for purchase of shares," he said.

The company expects its turnover to reach Rs 30,000 crore during the next fiscal. Steel City Securities earned a net profit of Rs 3.5 crore during last fiscal, and in the current fiscal, it expects its net profit to cross the Rs 4-crore mark.

At present, Steel City Securities has 15,300 clients. "Once the expansion is completed, we plan to increase our clientele-base to 30,000," he said.