Equitas Small Finance Bank shares fall nearly 6% in debut trade

Mumbai: Shares of Equitas Small Finance Bank on Monday debuted with a 6 per cent discount against its issue price of Rs 33.

The stock listed at Rs 31, a decline of 6 per cent against the issue price on the BSE.

At the NSE, it debuted at Rs 31.10, falling 5.75 per cent from the issue price.

The Rs 517-crore initial public offer of Equitas Small Finance Bank was subscribed 1.95 times last month.

Price range for the company's IPO was fixed at Rs 32-33 per share.

The company's market valuation was at Rs 3,596.87 crore on the BSE.

The IPO consisted of a fresh issue aggregating up to Rs 280 crore and an offer-for-sale of up to 7.2 crore equity shares by Equitas Holdings Limited, the holding company of the bank.

"It has been a very good journey for the bank over the last four years. We believe that we have created a platform which can really lead to a very strong, sustainable and steady growth as a bank. Our asset quality remains very strong. Even during the COVID and post-COVID period, our collection efficiencies have remained quite strong,? the bank's managing director and CEO P N Vasudevan?said during the listing ceremony.

In a filing to BSE on Sunday, Equitas Holdings said post the moratorium, which ended on August 31 2020, Equitas SFB witnessed healthy collections as lockdown restrictions eased across the country.

"Customers representing 94 per cent of the bank's advances have paid their EMIs either during September 2020 or October 2020 or both the months," according to the filing.

That leaves only customers representing the remaining around 6 per cent of the bank's advances (excluding loans under NPA) who have not paid both the September and October 2020 EMIs, out of which approximately 5 per cent loans are secured and only 1 per cent is unsecured, it said.

The offer opened for subscription on October 20 and closed on October 22, 2020.

The book running lead managers to the offer were JM Financial, Edelweiss Financial Services and IIFL Securities.