Wockhardt Hospitals calls off IPO

Waning investor confidence on the back of falling stockmarkets has claimed a victim in Wockhardt Hospitals, which announced that it would withdraw its initial public offer (IPO), the first company to do so in a year and a half, due to poor investor response.

Under law, the company has to refund investors their money if 90 per cent of the issue is not subscibed. The company will, accordingly, refund investors in 15 days.

At 5 pm, the IPO had received 4.9 million bids for 25.08 million shares on offer, according to data from the National Stock Exchange (NSE) website.

The qualified institutional buyers' (QIB) portion was subscribed 0.0644 times, or 6.44 per cent. The retail portion was subscribed 0.5192 times, or 51.92 per cent.

The issue was originally supposed to raise between Rs 688 crore and Rs 762 crore to finance various, projects pre-pay some short-term loans, and meet general corporate expenses.

The last time a public offer was withdrawn was the Rs 43-50 crore issue of Shirdi Industries in July 2006, after it failed to garner sufficient investor demand.

The previous two companies that withdrew their IPO were textiles firm Vigneshwara Exports Ltd and plastics company Bluplast Industries Ltd.

Shirdi Industries had earlier brought down the price band of the issue from Rs 69-78 to Rs 67-78 in a bid to attract more investors, but the move also proved unsuccessful.

The price band of the Wockhardt Hospital IPO was revised on January 30. Though the issue was technically open for subscription on January 31, no bids were received. Consequently, the issue opened for subscription on February 1 and was set to close yesterday.

But having attracted subscription of only 0.1 times, the closure date was extended by two days till today.

Yesterday, the mega-IPO of Emaar MGF extended its subscription period by five days to February 11.

The price band was re-revised, with the lower end brought down from Rs 540 to Rs 530 a share. The new price band is Rs 530 to Rs 630 a share. The company had first revised the band on January 31 "� from Rs 610- 690 to Rs 540- Rs 630 a share.

The SVEC Constructions IPO, set to close tomorrow, has been subscribed by 0.15 times as of today. With no bids received from the QIBs, the fate of the issue will be decided tomorrow.