DLF’s over ₹3,000 crore QIP closed; issue price fixed at ₹183.4 a share

Realty major DLF Thursday fixed an issue price of ₹183.4 per share under its QIP programme that closed Thursday.

On Monday, DLF, the country's largest real estate firm in market value, had launched its qualified institutional placement (QIP) offering up to 17.3 crore shares to investors.

In a regulatory filing, DLF said the Securities Issuance Committee has declared the closure of the QIP on Thursday.

The panel also approved the issue price of ₹183.40 per equity share, which is at a discount of 4.98 per cent (i.e. ₹9.61 per share) to the floor price of ₹193.01 per share.

At ₹183.4 per share, the company would raise ₹3,172 crore.

According to sources, DLF's QIP issue was oversubscribed by two times, enabling the company to raise around ₹3,200 crore.

Major institutional investors who participated in QIP offer include Oppenheimer, UBS, HSBC, Marshall & Wace, Myriad, Key Square, Goldman Sachs, Indus, Eastbridge, Tata Mutual Fund and HDFC Mutual Fund, sources had said.

With an aim to become a debt-free company, DLF had last year announced plans to issue shares through QIP to raise funds and pre-pay loans.

This is the third major fund raising from DLF. In 2007, DLF had raised about ₹9,200 crore through an initial public offering (IPO). In 2013, the company had raised nearly ₹1,900 crore through an institutional placement programme.

DLF's group Chief Financial Officer Ashok Tyagi recently said the QIP proceeds and further infusion of ₹2,500 crore from promoters against the issue of warrants would help the company significantly reduce the debt that stood at around ₹7,200 crore as on December 31, 2018.

DLF promoters K P Singh and family have already infused ₹9,000 crore in the company and would pump in ₹2,250 crore more.

The company made a preferential allotment of compulsorily convertible debentures (CCDs) and warrants to the promoters against the infusion of funds.

As infusion of the fund by promoters will lead to an increase in their shareholdings beyond permissible limit of 75 per cent, the company planned QIP to maintain minimum public shareholding of 25 per cent in a listed entity.

In August 2017, the promoters had sold the entire 40 per cent stake in rental arm DLF Cyber City Developers Ltd (DCCDL) for ₹11,900 crore and infused bulk of this amount in the company to cut net debt.