Protean eGov Tech IPO to open on Nov 6; sets price band at Rs 752-792/ share

Protean eGov Technologies (formerly known as NSDL E-Governance Infrastructure) on Wednesday fixed a price band of Rs 752-792 per share for its Rs 490-crore initial public offering. The maiden public issue that will open for subscription on November 6, will conclude on November 8 and the anchor book of the offer will be opened for a day on November 3, the company said in a statement.

The public issue is purely an offer-for-sale (OFS) by existing shareholders. The OFS size has been reduced to 61.91 lakh equity shares from 1.28 crore equity shares planned earlier.

Also, the offer includes a reservation of 1.5 lakh equity shares for the company's employees at a discount of Rs 75 per share to the final offer price.

Those offering shares in the OFS are -- IIFL Special Opportunities Funds, NSE Investments, Administrator of the Specified Undertaking of the Unit Trust of India, HDFC Bank, Axis Bank, Deutsche Bank AG, Punjab National Bank, and Union Bank of India.

At the upper end of the price band, the IPO is expected to fetch Rs 490.33 crore.

Since the IPO is completely an OFS, the entire proceeds will go to the selling shareholders and the company will not receive any funds from the issue.

Half of the issue size has been reserved for qualified institutional investors, 35 per cent for retail investors, and the remaining 15 per cent for non-institutional investors.

Further, investors can bid for a minimum of 18 equity shares and in a multiple of 18 equity shares thereafter.

Protean eGov Technologies is one of the key IT-enabled solution companies in India engaged in conceptualizing, developing, and executing nationally critical and population-scale greenfield technology solutions.

The company collaborated with the government and has extensive experience in creating digital public infrastructure and developing innovative citizen-centric e-governance solutions.

Originally set up as a depository in 1995, it created a systemically important national infrastructure for capital market development in India.

For the three months ended June 30, 2023, the company posted a profit after tax (PAT) of Rs 32.21 crore and a revenue from operation of Rs 220.4 crore.

ICICI Securities, Equirus Capital, IIFL Securities, and Nomura Financial Advisory and Securities (India) are the book-running lead managers to the issue.

Shares of the company will be listed on the BSE.