India’s Gaja Alternative Asset Management jumped as much as 20% in its stock market debut on Wednesday, valuing the private equity firm at 24.87 billion rupees ($260.66 million).
The listing is the first by an alternative asset management company in India, giving retail investors indirect access to a segment that has traditionally been available only to institutional and wealthy investors.
Gaja‘s shares debuted at 185 rupees, 15.6% above the issue price of 160 rupees, and climbed to an intraday high of 191.65 rupees on the National Stock Exchange of India. The gains followed the company’s $57.5 million initial public offering last week.
The IPO comes at a busy juncture in India’s primary market, where at least 20 offerings have been launched or announced so far this month, compared with 39 launched in seven previous months combined this year, according to NSE data.
Gaja joins a group of listed alternative asset managers globally, including Blackstone and KKR.
Gaja has invested in consumer and tech companies, including Fractal Analytics and HCLTech-backed Sarvam AI.
It plans to use the IPO proceeds to primarily invest in existing and new funds.
Investor demand for the offering was strong, with the IPO being subscribed 31.3 times overall. Qualified institutional buyers bid for 43.6 times the shares reserved for them, while non-institutional investors subscribed 62.4 times their allotted portion.
($1 = 95.4125 Indian rupees)
Reuters
