Piramal's Rs 3,650 cr rights issue oversubscribed

Piramal Enterprises on Wednesday said that its rights issue worth Rs 3,650 crore, which closed on Tuesday, has been over-subscribed by 1.14 times.

"The issue saw participation from most of its existing large institutional investors, as well as retail investors. The issue has been over-subscribed 1.14 times. The Rs 3,650 crore rights issue offered an opportunity to all its existing shareholders to participate in the capital raise," the company said in a statement.

It said that the issue was subscribed by large global and domestic institutional shareholders.

The capital infusion would strengthen Piramal Enterprises' balance sheet and enable the company to tap organic and inorganic growth opportunities.

Piramal Enterprises Chairman Ajay Piramal said: "Through the rights issue, the preferential allotment to CDPQ (Caisse de depot et placement du Quebec), the stake sale in Shriram Transport and the recent sale of Decision Resources Group, the company is far exceeding its commitment to bring in Rs 8,000-10,000 crore of equity in FY2020."

"With these transactions, the company is raising funds aggregating up to Rs 14,500 crore, which will further strengthen our balance sheet and allow us to target both organic as well as inorganic growth opportunities that the environment is offering," he added.

Apart from the rights issue, the company's fund-raise of about Rs 14,500 crore in fiscal 2019-2020 includes Rs 6,750 crore from the sale of Decision Resources Group to Clarivate Analytics, Rs 1,750 crore from CDPQ against preferential allotment of Compulsory Convertible Debentures (CCDs) and Rs 2,300 crore from the stake sale in Shriram Transport Finance.

Last week, Piramal had announced the divestment of its Decision Resources Group (DRG) business to Clarivate Analytics. In December the company had said that it raised nearly Rs 1,750 crore through preferential allotment of compulsorily convertible debentures (CCDs) from the Canada-based institutional investor CDPQ.IANS