Rs 950cr Just Dial IPO opens today

The estimated Rs 950 crore IPO of local search engine Just Dial will begin from Monday and is one of the largest initial public offers by an Indian Internet company. The IPO, which does not have issue of fresh shares, would see promoters offloading 17.49 million shares. This would make up for 25.2 per cent of the company's paid up equity capital.

The issue price range is Rs 470 - 543 and the discount to retail investors is Rs. 47 (10 per cent to the floor price). "This is for the first time that any company is offering such a huge discount of 10 per cent at the lower price band," KRIS Director Arun Kejriwal said. The Just Dial IPO, if successful, will be the biggest IPO in calendar year 2013. Last year, Bharti Infratel raised Rs 4,118 crore in 2012's biggest IPO. Founded by VSS Mani, the company, which started offering local search services in 1996 under the Justdial brand, has already raised Rs 208 crore by issuing shares to anchor investors including Goldman Sachs and HSBC. Citigroup and Morgan Stanley are the book-running lead managers to the issue. The company plans to list its shares on the BSE, NSE and MCX-SX. According to CRISIL Research, Just Dial provides search services across two main genera: company search - a specific or any business; category search - product or service based on a given classification.