India’s Bajaj Housing Finance sees shares more than double on debut after stellar IPO

• Shares of India’s Bajaj Housing Finance more than doubled Monday on their market debut, jumping 130% from their IPO pricing.
• Bajaj Housing Finance’s blockbuster IPO last week drew bids worth $39 billion, with shares being oversubscribed nearly 64 times. The company raised $781 million, valuing it at $7 billion.
• After Monday’s debut the total market cap of the company was pegged at about $15.6 billion, exchange data showed.

Shares of India’s Bajaj Housing Finance more than doubled Monday on their market debut, reflecting strong demand from investors looking to play the country’s growing real estate sector.

The company’s shares, which debuted on the National Stock Exchange in India, surged to as much as 161 rupees apiece, jumping about 130% from the top end of their IPO pricing of 70 rupees. 

Bajaj Housing Finance’s blockbuster IPO last week drew bids worth $39 billion, with shares being oversubscribed nearly 64 times. The company raised $781 million, valuing it at $7 billion.

After Monday’s debut the total market cap of the company was pegged at about $15.6 billion (1,331.59 billion rupees), exchange data showed.

Bajaj Housing Finance, headquartered in Pune, caters to more than 88.11 million customers across the country, according to the company’s website.

The home loan financing company, which is a unit of non-bank lender Bajaj Finance, primarily provides mortgage loans to high-end individual homebuyers and corporate entities for the purchase and renovation of homes or commercial spaces.

It also provides loans against property for business or personal needs as well as working capital for business expansion purposes.

The company is part of Indian conglomerate Bajaj Group which also owns auto and consumer goods business.

“There has been a big step-up in [IPO] supplies in response to the pick up in demand [in India],” Ashish Gupta, CIO at Axis Mutual Fund told CNBC’s “Street Signs Asia” Monday. He noted that the trend will continue to play out, with IPOs in this quarter growing nearly three times from the previous quarter.

Indian equity markets have seen sustained investor interest as the country remains the world’s fastest-growing major economy. 

Benchmark indexes the Nifty 50 and the Sensex have gained 17% and 15%, respectively, so far this year, building on their 20% and 19% gains from last year.