Sebi to Ruchi Soya: Allow FPO investors to withdraw bids

The capital markets regulator said prima facie, the contents of the text messages appeared to be “misleading/fraudulent” and don’t comply with regulations. This followed a meeting with bankers to the issue on Monday. “All the investors/bidders (except anchor book participants) shall be given an option to withdraw bids,” Sebi said.

Agencies

Bankers to Inform Investors

“The window for withdrawal shall be available on March 28, 29 and 30. The procedure to withdrawal shall be informed to investors and shall be part of the advertisement issued,” according to Sebi’s notice to the bankers to the issue.

Shares of Ruchi Soya dropped 6% on Monday to close at Rs 815 on the BSE. The company’s FPO was the first public issue since February 8. The Sebi notice was issued after the market closed.

SBI Capital, Axis Capital, and ICICI Securities were the bankers to the Rs 4,300 crore follow-on public offer (FPO) of Ruchi Soya Industries, which was subscribed 3.6 times on Monday, the last day for bids. Investors placed bids for 176.1 million shares against the 48.9 million on offer.

Sebi has also asked the bankers to send text messages to all the applicants informing them of the withdrawal window.

“A notice to investors shall be issued in the form of an advertisement in the newspapers cautioning investors on the circulation of unsolicited SMSes,” the regulator said. “The advertisement is to be issued on March 29 and 30 and shall be made in the same size as issued for other statutory advertisement and in the same newspaper as issue advertisement.”

The qualified institutional buyer category was subscribed 2.20 times, while the portion reserved for retail investors was subscribed 0.90 times. The non-institutional investor category was subscribed 11.75 times, and the employee reserved category was subscribed 7.76 times.

The company had raised Rs 1,290 crore from 46 anchor investors ahead of the public issue. About 21% of the total anchor book size was allocated to 24 mutual fund schemes, including Kotak, SBI, UTI, Aditya Birla Sun Life, and Quant. Among foreign investors, Societe Generale, BNP Paribas, The Sultanate of Oman-Ministry of Defence Pension Fund, Yas Takaful PJSC, MK Cohesion and UPS Group received allocation under the anchor book.

Ruchi Soya, controlled by Patanjali Ayurved Group, sold its shares in the range of Rs 615-650 apiece to comply with Sebi’s minimum public holding norms. Patanjali holds 98.9% of Ruchi Soya, which it acquired through insolvency resolution. After the FPO, its shareholding is to drop to 81%.

According to market participants, an SMS allegedly sent to Patanjali customers said that the Ruchi Soya FPO was a good investment opportunity and was available at a discount of about 30% to the market price.

So far in FY22, about 51 companies have raised a record Rs 1.15 lakh crore from public issues compared with the previous record of Rs 81,553 crore raised in FY18 by 45 companies.