Mumbai: Kalyan Jewellers India Ltd. will start an initial share sale next week in a bid to raise as much as $161 million — largest among Indian jewelers — as the Indian economy recovers from the pandemic-induced recession.
The Kerala-based jewelry maker plans to sell shares worth 11.75 billion rupees ($161.2 million) between March 16 and March 18, the company said in a statement Thursday. Existing shareholders, including founder T.S. Kalyanaraman and Warburg Pincus LLC, will offer shares at about 86-87 rupees apiece. The stock is expected to start trading on exchanges from March 26, according to the prospectus.
The initial public offering by Kalyan Jewellers, which counts Bollywood actors Amitabh Bachchan and Katrina Kaif among its brand ambassadors, comes as gold consumption is set to rebound this year in India after plunging to the lowest in more than two decades in 2020. Indians are among the world’s second-biggest consumers of the precious metal and are on a shopping spree spanning clothes to cars.
“We’ve got very strong interest from anchor investors, both domestic as well as foreign,” said Salil Pitale, joint managing director of Axis Capital Ltd., which is one of the bankers organizing the public offer.
Citigroup Global Markets India Pvt., Axis Capital Ltd., ICICI Securities Ltd., SBI Capital Markets Ltd. and BOB Capital Markets Ltd. are global coordinators and book running lead managers for the share sale.
Started in 1993 by Kalyanaraman in the southern state of Kerala, the jeweler had an income of 101 billion rupees in the financial year ended March 2020, the company said. It has 107 stores in India and 30 showrooms in west Asia.
Post listing, Kalyan Jewellers will compete with some of the biggest listed rivals in India such as Tata Group’s Titan Co., Tribhovandas Bhimji Zaveri Ltd. and PC Jeweller Ltd.-Bloomberg
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