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Institutional buyers bid for 9x reserved shares

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Retail, non-institutional buyers show tepid demand

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Broader market in steep fall amid earnings, tariff worries

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Hexaware stock expected to list on February 19

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Hexaware seeking valuation of about $5 bln at upper end of

price

band

By Nandan Mandayam

Feb 14 (Reuters) - Indian IT exporter Hexaware

Technologies' $1 billion initial public offering was

fully subscribed in the final hours of the share sale on Friday,

driven largely by institutional buyers as others held back amid

a broader market slide.

The company is targeting a valuation of 430 billion rupees

($4.96 billion) at the upper end of its price band of 674-708

rupees in India's biggest IPO so far this year.

Top shareholder Carlyle is selling about 21% of its

stake in the company, which is issuing no new shares in the IPO.

The IPO comes at a time when India's blue-chip Nifty 50

index has fallen 3% so far this year and slid about

12.5% from its all-time closing high in September, amid concerns

over a corporate earnings slowdown, fewer U.S. rate cuts,

sustained foreign selling, and worries about U.S. tariffs.

"The overall market sentiment does not appear to favour

richly-priced IPOs at this time," said Narendra Solanki, head of

research at Anand Rathi.

Hexaware's IPO was subscribed some 2.7 times, led by demand

from qualified institutional buyers such as foreign investors

and mutual funds, who bid for 9 times the shares on offer.

However, retail investors, for whom Hexaware had reserved

nearly 45 million shares, bid for just 11% of the shares on

offer. Non institutional investors bid for only a fifth of their

portion.

"Investors looking for short-term gains through the IPO are

staying away from Hexaware," said Arun Kejriwal, founder of

Kejriwal Research.

The absence of a "listing pop" in the so-called indicative

grey market premium, which is in single digits, is keeping

investors away, he added.

After a record year for IPOs in 2024, public floats have

offered investors scant returns this year, with 60% of the

companies that have listed on the BSE bourse trading at a

discount to their IPO price, stock exchange data showed.

Hexaware's stock is expected to be listed on February 19.

The company was a publicly listed firm until late 2020, when

its former controlling shareholder Baring Private Equity Asia

(BPEA) took it private. Carlyle acquired a majority stake in the

company in 2021.

($1 = 86.7170 Indian rupees)

(Reporting by Nandan Mandayam in Bengaluru; Editing by Shinjini

Ganguli)