Premji throws his hat into the NYSE ring

Wipro’s 2.75 million American Depository Share (ADS), each representing one equity share, was priced at a little over $41, a small discount to its current trading price (around Rs 2,200) in India. It touched a peak of $47 before moving back to the mid-40s at noon.Although market mavens did not consider it particularly auspicious moment to list because of the turmoil in the American bourses markets, Wipro nervously went ahead with the plans and was buoyed by a rebound in the market today. But over the past month, it sharply lowered the projected IPO price from around $64 to the low 40s.

The diversified information technology firm expects to raise about $125 million from the offering, way below the target it had once set. It will use the money for other acquisitions and expansions.

Wipro will trade under the symbol WIT. It becomes the sixth Indian company to list in the US after Infosys, Satyam, Rediff, ICICI, and Silverline Technologies.

Although older than all these firms, the conservative Wipro took its own time getting to America after weighing the implications and market conditions. But it was a white-knuckle prelude to the debut as the Dow sank by a nose-bleeding 400 points on Wednesday before recovering most of the losses.

But on a sunny Thursday morning, the market rocked again after haemorraging for two weeks. Tech majors, most of them listed on Nasdaq, roared out the blocks and Wipro joined the party although it listed in the more stable, less volatile NYSE. The listing is a triumph for the low-key Premji who has led Wipro from a small Rupees 4 crore oil-trading company to a Rs 16,000 crore diversified giant making everything from soaps, hydraulics to medical equipment to bulbs to its shiniest badge now software.

Although the company makes money from most of its products, its achievements in the software field is what has made it a technological major from India.

Wipro had plunged sharply from its peak of nearly Rs 10,000 per share early this year, a phenomenal pricing that gave it a market cap of over Rs 50,000 crores and made it India’s largest company ahead of traditional giants like Hindustan Lever and Reliance Industries.

Much to the discomfiture of the low-key Premji, that surge briefly resulted in his becoming the world’s second richest man since he owns 75 per cent of the company. At its peak, Premji’s wealth mostly on paper was calculated at $ 36 billion, marginally ahead of Warren Buffett’s wealth and half of Bill Gates’s legendary riches.

Since that peak of Rs 10000 early this year, Wipro had been battered down to a modest Rs 2200 or thereabouts, sizing down Premji’s paper wealth to a fifth. Wipro now joins its rival Infosys, which is listed on Nasdaq. Like Wipro and almost every other tech major in the world, Infosys too has dropped from a peak of $375 an ADR to a more modest $120. But Infosys too has earned rave reviews in the American market and the two Bangalore-based companies are expected to be the Indian bellwethers in the US market.

A clutch of other smaller companies listed in the US has also been battered.