Music Broadcast Ltd., owner of the Radio City FM stations, surged on the first day of trading on the Bombay Stock Exchange, becoming the first radio station to list shares in more than a decade.
The stock jumped 26 percent to Rs 420 upon listing, after selling shares at Rs 333 apiece in an initial public offering (IPO). Radio City has FM stations across 37 cities such as Mumbai, Delhi and Chennai, making it the biggest private radio broadcaster in the country.
The company, which raised Rs 489-crore in the IPO, is ramping up presence in north India, starting with Rajasthan where it recently launched radio stations in 5 cities, Music Broadcast's board member Apurva Purohit told BloombergQuint.
The three IPOs so far this year — Music Broadcast, BSE Ltd., and Avenue Supermarts Ltd. – have seen a demand of nearly 54 times their combined issue size of Rs 3,600 crore. The benchmark Nifty50 Index has risen more than 11 percent year-to-date and touched an all-time high of 9218.40 on Friday.
The last media company-operated radio channel to list in India was Entertainment Network (India) Ltd, which operates Radio Mirchi, in 2006 after the government opened up frequencies for companies to start city programming in 2000.
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