Diagnostics firm Metropolis Healthcare began its D-Street journey on a strong footing with its shares opening at a 9% premium over its issue price on the first day of trading.
The Mumbai-headquartered company’s shares opened at ₹960 apiece on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) on Monday morning. On the National Stock Exchange (NSE), it opened at ₹958 per share. The issue price was ₹880.
The stock touched a low of ₹934.8 per share and a high of ₹979 apiece on the BSE in intraday trading. At 2.30 pm, Metropolis Healthcare’s stock was trading at levels of ₹970 per share on the BSE.
The company’s ₹1,204 crore IPO opened for subscription from April 3 to April 5, at a price band of ₹877-880 apiece, consisting of 13.7 million shares. Of the total shares on offer, promoter Sushil Shah offered up to 6.3 million shares for sale, while investor CA Lotus Investments offered 7.4 million shares. Metropolis’ IPO was over-subscribed nearly six times.
Brokerage firms Centrum Wealth and IIFL Securities recommended investing in the stock from a longer-term perspective in their recent notes.
“At the higher end of the price band of ₹880, the issue is priced at 40.2 times its FY18 earnings and 37.3 times its earnings for the first nine months of FY19, on annualised basis which appears fairly priced. Hence, we suggest investors to 'subscribe for long term' to this IPO,” Centrum said in its note.
Meanwhile, ICICI Direct in its note said the company is poised to grow in the Indian diagnostics market but pointed out pricing policies by the government, rapid technological advancement in diagnostics and high dependency on institutional customers as risks to the company’s growth.
