Schloss Bangalore Ltd, the owner of The Leela luxury hotel chain, made a lackluster debut on stock exchanges on Monday as its shares listed at a discount of 6.6% to the initial public offering price before erasing the losses.
Shares of Schloss, which is majority owned by Canadian alternative investment firm Brookfield, started trading on the BSE at Rs 406.50 apiece versus the IPO price of Rs 435 apiece before inching higher. The shares ended at Rs 435.55 apiece, giving the company a market value of Rs 14,545 crore.
The benchmark BSE Sensex was down about 0.75% in morning trade but recovered later in the day to end flat.
The tepid debut comes after the company’s IPO was oversubscribed 4.5 times last week, thanks to institutional buyers amid a lukewarm response from retail investors. While retail investors bid for only 83% of the portion reserved for them, institutional investors’ quota was covered 7.46 times.
The IPO comprised a fresh issue of shares by the company to raise Rs 2,500 crore and an offer for sale by Brookfield to mop up Rs 1,000 crore. The company had filed for the IPO last year and received regulatory approval in late December.
The company, which operates 13 luxury hotels, joins bigger listed peers Taj hotels operator Indian Hotels Co., ITC Hotels, Oberoi hotels owner EIH Ltd, Chalet Hotels and Blackstone-backed Ventive Hospitality Ltd on the stock exchanges.
Toronto-headquartered Brookfield, which manages a portfolio of $29 billion in India across real estate, infrastructure, renewable energy, private equity and credit, acquired the Leela hotel chain in 2019. It has managed to score spectacular returns through the partial exit on its six-year-old investment, VCCircle reported last month.