New Delhi, July 15 -- The initial public offering of Anthem Biosciences Ltd, which counts private equity firms True North and Faering Capital as its investors, was fully subscribed on the second day of bidding on Tuesday.
The IPO was covered 1.81 times after receiving bids for 79.85 million shares for the 44.07 million shares on offer, excluding the anchor investors' portion, according to stock-exchange data as of early afternoon.
Non-institutional investors led the bidding process, applying for nearly five times the shares reserved for them. Retail investors' quota was covered 1.29 times while the portion set aside for institutional investors was covered 39%.
The IPO opened on Monday and closes on Wednesday. The company has fixed a price band of Rs 540-570 per share for the IPO, which doesn't include any fresh issue and involves an offer for sale worth Rs 3,395 crore ($396 million) by True North, Faering, US-based drugmaker DavosPharma, Anthem's founders and some individual shareholders.
Ahead of the IPO, anchor investors such as Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, Norway's sovereign wealth fund and several local funds such as HDFC Mutual Fund and ICICI Prudential AMC subscribed to shares worth Rs 1,016 crore.
Anthem Biosciences filed for the IPO on Dec. 31, 2024, months after VCCircle first reported in February 2024 that it was aiming to go public in 2025. The IPO received regulatory approval in April.
VCCircle previously reported that the IPO will help True North and Faering to churn out benchmark-beating returns on their investment in the contract drug researcher and manufacturer they backed about four years ago by selling about half their stake.
True North and Faering, via a special purpose vehicle, had picked up an 8.33% stake in Anthem for Rs 620 crore ($85 million then) in April 2021. This valued the company at $1 billion, or around Rs 7,500 crore at the time. The special purpose vehicle currently owns a 7.93% stake in Anthem, after selling a small chunk of shares to the company's founders late last year for Rs 12 crore. It now intends to sell shares worth Rs 1,325 crore in the IPO, or more than double the amount it had invested.
Anthem will command a market valuation of Rs 32,018 crore ($3.7 billion) at the upper end of its price band, back-of-the-envelope calculations show. That's within the range VCCircle estimated in January.
Anthem was founded in 2007 by former Biocon executives Ajay Bhardwaj, KC Ravindra and Ganesh Sambasivam. It offers drug discovery, development and manufacturing services. It operates two manufacturing plants near Bengaluru. The company recorded a 30% jump in revenue to Rs 1,844.5 crore in FY25. Net profit rose to Rs 451.3 crore from Rs 367.3 crore for FY24, according to its red herring prospectus.
Published by HT Digital Content Services with permission from VC Circle.