India Pesticides files for Rs 800 crore IPO

Agrochemical company India Pesticides Ltd has filed a draft red herring prospectus (DRHP) to raise Rs 800 crore through an initial public offering (IPO).

The public offer comprises of a fund raise via fresh issuance of shares amounting to Rs 100 crore and Rs 700 crore through an offer-for-sale by promoter and technocrat Anand Swarup Agarwal aggregating to Rs 281 crore and other selling shareholders the balance of Rs 419 crore.

The company may decide to undertake a pre-IPO placement of Rs 75 crore subject to consultation of merchant bankers. Axis Capital and JM Financial are book running lead managers, and KFin Technologies is registrar to the issue.

The face value of equity shares is Re 1 each. The price band and minimum bid lot will be decided by the company and the promoter selling shareholders in consultation with book running lead managers.

The company said it proposes to utilise net proceeds towards funding the working capital requirements and general corporate purposes.

India Pesticides Ltd started operations in 1984 and has a growing formulations business in herbicides, insecticides and fungicide segments.

It is the only Indian manufacturer and among top five compes globally for several technical products like folpet and cynomoxl which are used to make fungicides that control fungal growth across a variety of crops.

The major herbicide technical it manufactures includes thiocarbamate which is having an application in field crops like wheat and rice.

The firm has two manufacturing facilities at Lucknow and Hardoi, Uttar Pradesh having an aggregate capacity of 19,500 tonnes for technicals and 6,500 tonnes for the formulations vertical.

( With inputs from ANI )