DLF files draft prospectus for IPO

New Delhi: DLF Universal Ltd (DUL), a real estate developer, on Friday filed its Draft Red Herring Prospectus with the Securities Exchange Board of India (SEBI).

DUL proposes to enter the capital market with an Initial Public Offering (IPO) of 202,000,000 equity shares of Rs 2 each for cash at a premium to be decided through the 100 per cent book building process. The company is expected to raise more than Rs 10,500 crore.

The issue comprises a fresh issue of 187,097,190 equity shares by the company and an offer for sale of 14,902,810 equity shares. The company also has a green shoe option of 17,000,000 equity shares.

In the IPO, the company proposes to reserve 200,000 equity shares for allotment to employees, Of the balance, at least 60 per cent will be alloted to Qualified Institutional Buyers, 10 per cent to non-institutional investors and 30 per cent to retail investors.

Kotak Mahindra Capital and DSP Merril Lynch are the global coordinators and Book Running Lead Managers, while Goldman Sachs and HSBC are advisors to the issue.

The company had said on April 20 that it would raise over Rs 10,500 crore from the largest ever public issue in June, but before that it would issue bonus shares to existing shareholders, split stocks and privately place 3.5 crore of equity.

"The DLF's issue would be larger than the ONGC public offer (which had raised Rs 10,500 crore) to fund its expansion programmes and future growth," DLF Chief Financial Officer Ramesh Sanka said.

Before coming out with Rs 20 crore equity issue by June-end, the company would issue seven bonus shares against each held by the existing shareholders, split stocks of face value of Rs 10 into Rs 2 and place 3.5 crore shares with foreign institutional investors or domestic institutional investors.

Approval to these decisions was given by the company's shareholders at the extraordinary general body meeting held on April 20.

DLF, which earned profit before tax of Rs 700 crore on a turnover of Rs 2,000 crore during 2005-06, plans to use major portion of the proceedings from the IPO to fund special economic zones, to be built by the company.

The group has started initial process of acquiring land for building SEZs in Ludhiana, Amritsar and Gurgaon.

It also has plans to foray into hotel business.