Private equity major Blackstone will sell Sona BLW Precision Forgings Ltd’s shares worth ₹3,971.7 crore through a block trade today, according to the terms of the deal.
Shares of the auto component manufacturer will be sold at a floor price of ₹500 apiece, or at a 7.24% discount to its last closing price of ₹539 on the NSE. At the base price Blackstone will be selling 63.5 million shares, or 10.87% stake in the firm for ₹3,177.3 crore.
Blackstone has the option to raise the deal size by another 15.8 million shares, which will fetch it another ₹794.3 crore.
Nomura Financial Advisory and Securities (India) Pvt. Ltd is the sole broker for the trade.
The Blackstone deal comes on the back of a resurgence in the stock market after hitting a low in June. The markets have delivered a 17% return till date, and foreign investors are rushing back to Indian equities.
This has created a window of opportunity for all existing shareholders to explore secondary share sales through block trades, said experts.
The Blackstone block trade for Sona BLW comes immediately after KKR’s ₹9,185 crore block trade for Max Healthcare, which helped the private equity firm to sell its entire stake in the hospital chain.
The trade also follows the secondary sale by Uber, which sold its entire 7.78% stake in food delivery platform Zomato for ₹3,088 crore earlier this month.
Blackstone held 34.12% in Sona BLW as of 30 June, 2022. The private equity firm had sold a large chunk of its shareholding worth ₹5,250 crore during the company’s initial public offering (IPO) in June last year.
In the IPO Sona sold its shares for ₹291 apiece.
