With Happiest Minds, 77-year-old Ashok Soota hits IPO jackpot a second time

Happiest Minds, which gets almost all of its revenue from digital services, is one of two IPOs this week to woo Indian investors

Ashok Soota, a pioneer of India’s information technology services industry, has headed three outsourcing companies including one of the nation’s largest, Wipro Ltd., and taken two of them public.

The second was this week when the initial public offering of his latest startup, Happiest Minds Technologies Ltd., was oversubscribed 151 times. The IPO got bids for 3.51 billion shares versus the 23.3 million on offer, ranking it among India’s most successful first-time share sales of this decade.

“The IPO got a boost from the credibility of the founder,” said Abhimanyu Sofat, head of research at IIFL Securities Ltd. in Mumbai. “That added