HDFC Asset Management Co. Ltd (HDFC AMC), the asset management business of mortgage lender HDFC Ltd, on Thursday said its board has approved its proposed initial public offering (IPO).
The IPO is subject to relevant corporate, regulatory and other applicable approvals, the company said in a statement.
In the proposed share sale, both the shareholders of the AMC—Housing Development Finance Corp. Ltd (HDFC) and Standard Life Investments Ltd—will sell parts of their stakes to the public.
HDFC and Standard Life plan to dilute their shareholding to at least 50.01% and 24.99% respectively, through dilution in one or more tranches. As of 30 September, HDFC held a 57.36% stake in the company.
“We believe that listing would unlock the value of the business for the shareholders and provide investors an opportunity to participate in the emerging asset management space within our group,” said Deepak Parekh, chairman of HDFC AMC.
Standard Life and HDFC also said they will enter into a collaboration agreement to develop new products in India.
“The Indian asset management industry has seen strong business flows with increasing awareness of mutual fund products. The improving penetration levels of mutual fund products provide an interesting opportunity to channelize investments more productively,” said Milind Barve, managing director of HDFC AMC.
HDFC AMC manages total assets under management of Rs2,69,781 crore, of which Rs1,19,159 crore is in equity oriented funds, as of 30 September.
For the financial year 31 March 2017, the AMC reported revenue of Rs1,588 crore and a profit of Rs550 crore. The company’s net worth stood at Rs1,417 crore.
The proposed IPO of HDFC AMC comes after the successful IPO of HDFC Standard Life Insurance Co Ltd.
The IPO of HDFC Standard Life Insurance Co. Ltd, which was launched earlier in November, was subscribed 4.88 times.
The IPO, a pure offer for sale, saw HDFC and Standard Life sell 299.82 million shares, fetching Rs8,695 crore. HDFC AMC is also the second asset management company to go public, following the IPO of Reliance Nippon Life Asset Management Co. Ltd. In October, the Rs1,542 crore initial public offering of Reliance Nippon Life Asset Management Ltd, India’s third largest mutual fund manager, was subscribed 81.45 times.
Like HDFC, several major financial institutions have taken advantage of the buoyant IPO market to take their subsidiaries public and in the process, raise funds by diluting their stakes in these companies.
ICICI Bank Ltd took its general life insurance company—ICICI Lombard General Insurance Co. Ltd—public earlier this year in a Rs5,700 crore IPO, while the country’s largest lender diluted an 8% stake in the IPO of its insurance business—SBI Life Insurance Co. Ltd.
ICICI Bank Ltd recently announced that it plans divest stake in its broking business ICICI Securities Ltd through an IPO.
Till October 2017, 30 companies raised Rs47,099.23 crore through the IPO route, according to data from primary market tracker Prime Database. In 2016, 26 companies had gone public raising 26,493.84 crore through the IPO route.
Source: Mint