ICICI Securities Closes Nearly 14.4% Below IPO Price After Stock Market Debut

ICICI Securities Ltd. that made its stock market debut today, closed at a discount of nearly 14.4 percent to the issue price of Rs 520. The stock slipped 16.3 percent at the open on the National Stock Exchange.

The country's largest broker had reduced its initial public offering size to Rs 3,500 crore from the initial planned Rs 4,017 crore after shares set aside for high net-worth and retail investors received an underwhelming response.

Before the IPO size reduction, the portion reserved for qualified institutional buyers was subscribed 1.04 times the number of shares on offer, according to data available with the stock exchanges. The retail portion of the offer was subscribed 0.84 times while the shares set aside for ICICI Bank shareholders was subscribed 0.34 times. The non-institutional investor segment subscribed 0.36 times.

ICICI Securities is the third unit arm of the ICICI group to go public after ICICI Prudential Life Insurance and ICICI Lombard General Insurance in the last three years.

Incorporated in 1995, ICICI Securities offers financial services such as retail and institutional broking, financial product distribution, investment banking, merchant banking and advisory services to financial institutions, corporates, retail investors and high net-worth individuals. With the launch of ICICIdirect in 2000, the company started offering brokerage services online.

The company has been working on diversifying revenue streams to reduce volatility in the broking business by increasing contribution from distribution and investment banking. As a result, the contribution of brokerage business to overall revenue has decreased from 70 percent to 63 percent in five years to March 2017.