Symbiotec Pharmalab has raised Rs 526.20 crore from anchor investors ahead of its initial public offering (IPO), which is scheduled to open for subscription on August 24. Investors in the anchor round included Citi Group and Singularity, Economic Times Markets reported.

The pharmaceutical company is an Indore-based manufacturer of steroid-hormone active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) — the biologically active components from which finished medicines are made — and its public issue is sized at Rs 1,757 crore. Shares are being offered in a price band of Rs 938–988 each, and proceeds from the fresh issue have been earmarked for repaying debt.

Under the framework laid down by the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), the country's capital markets regulator, anchor investors are institutional investors that are allotted shares one working day before a public issue opens to other categories of investors. Anchor allotments are subject to mandatory lock-in periods — under current SEBI rules, half of an anchor investor's allotted shares remain locked for 30 days and the other half for 90 days — and half of the anchor portion is reserved for mutual funds. Because anchor allotments are finalised before the public book opens, they are commonly watched as an early reference point for institutional demand.

The price band marks the range within which investors can place their bids during the book-building process, in which subscriptions are accepted from qualified institutional buyers, non-institutional investors, and retail individual investors. The final offer price is determined once the subscription window closes, after which the shares are listed on the stock exchanges.

The fresh issue component of an IPO consists of newly issued shares, with the proceeds going to the company itself — in Symbiotec's case, toward debt repayment. This differs from an offer for sale, in which existing shareholders sell their stakes and receive the proceeds.

Source: Economic Times Markets