The primary market has seen good retail participation after a long time. Around 17 lakh retail investors applied for the mega public issue of Coal India,leading to oversubscription of 2.31 times in the retail quota. This means retail investors have put in bids for 45.86 crore shares worth Rs 11,235 crore. We got 17 lakh applications for the CIL IPO. We are seeing such a huge response from the retail category after a long time. This indicates that theres appetite for equity among retail investors. Quality of the issue and pricing are two important aspects for better retail response, said an investment banking source. Earlier this year,the Rs 8,000 crore NTPC issue attracted very poor response from retail investors and the retail portion was subscribed just 0.16 per cent. The retail quota in the REC issue was subscribed 0.22 per cent and the NMDC issue 0. 21 per cent (bids for only 2.52 crore shares came as against 11.56 crore shares on offer). Coal India IPOs retail portion started on a tepid note,but picked up steam in the last two days as institutions made a mad scramble for the companys shares. With the issue getting good response,the government is likely to price the IPO in the uppder range of the Rs 225-245 price range. The company is planning to list the shares on November 4. Retail investors will get a 5 per cent discount on the final offer price to be fixed by the government on Monday. The excellent response will help the government to float Indian Oil,MOIL,Hindustan Copper and ONGC shares without many hurdles in the coming months. We hope that the stock market will also remain bullish in the wake of huge FII inflows, said an investment banker. Bankers said the government should not overprice remaining IPOs from the public sector stable. On the other hand,retail investors should not leverage much to subscribe to public issues, they said.
