U.K.-based Vodafone Group Plc has appointed investment banks to arrange for its initial public offer (IPO) in its Indian entity Vodafone India. The $3 billion stock offering could potentially be the country's largest IPO, according to latest reports.
Bank of America, Kotak Mahindra Bank and UBS Group, as joint global coordinators, will lead the offering expected to take place next year, sources told Bloomberg. It added that Deutsche Bank, HSBC Holdings and ICICI Securities were also selected to work on the share sale, as joint book running lead managers (BRLM) to the coordinators of the issue.
The share sale would provide Vodafone funds to expand in India. The country's rising wages have helped the company's growth in India outpace its business in mature Western markets such as the U.K.
With the IPO, Vodafone will overtake Coal India's 2010 listing of $2.3 billion (Rs. 15,500 crore), which was oversubscribed by almost 15 times over its issue size. Vodafone India's IPO tipped to raise up to $3 billion (Rs. 19,900 crore) would therefore surpass the state-owned Coal India's listing, and also set a new record, said Reuters.
Before going public, India's second biggest telecommunication company will wait to see the results of an upcoming spectrum auction by the Indian government in July. It will also weigh the impact of the competition from new wireless operator Reliance Jio Infocomm, owned by multi-billionaire Mukesh Ambani, Bloomberg reported earlier.
It had also said that the London-headquartered Vodafone may sell 10 percent of its India business, and set the valuation of its operations at $20 billion (Rs, 1.32 lakh crore, approximately).
Bharti Airtel, India's largest telco by number of subscribers, has a market capitalisation of nearly $21.3 billion (Rs.1.4 lakh crore). Idea Cellular, another thriving teleco, has about $6.2 billion (Rs. 41,315.85 crore) in market cap.
