ESAF Small Finance Bank Ltd IPO Allotment Status

ESAF Small Finance Bank Ltd IPO gets a strong response

The IPO of ESAF Small Finance Bank opened on 03rd November 2023 and closed for subscription on 07th November 2023. The stock of the company has a face value of ₹10 per share and the price band for the book building IPO has been set in the band of ₹57 to ₹60. The IPO of ESAF Small Finance Bank Ltd will be a combination of fresh issue and an offer for sale (OFS). Let us start with the fresh issue portion first; which comprises the issue of 6,51,16,667 shares (651.17 lakh shares approximately), which at the upper price band of ₹60 per share will translate into fresh issue size of ₹390.70 crore. The offer for sale (OFS) portion of the IPO of ESAF Small Finance Bank Ltd comprises the sale of 1,20,50,000 shares (120.50 lakh shares), which at the upper price band of ₹60 per share will translate into an offer for sale (OFS) size of ₹72.30 crore.

The OFS selling will be by the promoter shareholders and investor shareholders. Out of the 120.50 lakh shares OFS, promoter ESAF Financial Holdings will offer 82.10 shares while investor shareholders (PNB Metlife Insurance and Bajaj Allianz Life Insurance) will offer the remaining 38.40 lakh shares. As a result, the overall IPO of ESAF Small Finance Bank Ltd will comprise of the issue and sale of 7,71,66,667 shares (771.67 crore shares approximately), which at the upper price band of ₹60 per share will translate into total IPO issue size of ₹463 crore. The IPO of ESAF Small Finance Bank Ltd was overall subscribed 73.15 times, with the maximum subscription coming from the QIB portion, which got subscribed 173.52 times. While the HNI / NII segment got subscribed at a healthy clip of 84.37 times, the retail portion got subscribed at a relative strong clip of 16.97 times. Most of the QIB subscriptions came in on the last day of the IPO, which is the norm. The IPO was open for 3 days.

When will the basis of allotment be finalized

The first step for checking the allotment status of the IPO online is the completion of the basis of allotment of ESAF Small Finance Bank Ltd. The basis of allotment will be finalized late on 10th November 2023. The refunds will be initiated by the company on 13th November 2023. The demat credits are expected to also happen on 15th November 2023 while the listing of the stock on the NSE and the BSE will happen on 16th November 2023. In between there was a weekend and a holiday so the allotment status gets delayed by a couple of days. However, it looks like the companies are keen to adhere to the new SEBI norm of T+3 listing. That is voluntary as of now but will become mandatory as of the start of December 2023, so most IPO issuers are getting fully prepared for the new system. 

If you have applied for the IPO, you can check your allotment status online.  You can either check your allotment status on the BSE website or the IPO registrar, Link Intime India Private Limited. Here are the steps.

Checking the allotment status of ESAF Small Finance Bank Ltd on BSE website

Since this is an NSE SME IPO, there is no facility to check on the exchange website and BSE only offers allotment status in the case of mainboard IPOs and for BSE SME IPOs. If you have applied for the IPO, you can check your allotment status online on the website of the IPO registrar, Skyline Financial Services Private Ltd. Here are the steps that you need to follow to check allotment status.

https://www.bseindia.com/investors/appli_check.aspx

Once you reach the page, here are the steps to follow.
    • Under Issue Type – Select Equity Option
    • Under Issue Name – Select ESAF Small Finance Bank Ltd from the drop down box
    • Enter the Application Number exactly as in the acknowledgement slip
    • Enter the PAN (10-digit alphanumeric) number
    • Once this is done, you need to click on the Captcha to verify that you are not a robot
    • Finally click on the Search Button

In the past, while checking the allotment status on the BSE website, it was necessary to input the PAN number and the application Number. However, now BSE has modified the requirements and it is sufficient if you enter any one of these parameters.

The allotment status will be displayed on the screen in front of you informing about the number of shares of ESAF Small Finance Bank Ltd allotted into your demat account. It is always advisable to save a screenshot of the allotment status output for subsequently verifying with the demat account credits on or after 15th November 2023.

Checking the allotment status of ESAF Small Finance Bank Ltd on Link Intime India Private Limited 

Here are the steps to follow. Visit the Link Intime registrar website for IPO status by clicking on the link below:

https://linkintime.co.in/IPO/public-issues.html

There are three things to remember. Firstly, you can just click on the hyper link given above and directly go to the allotment checking page. The second option, in case you are not able to click on the link, is to copy the link and paste in your web browser. Thirdly, there also a way to access this page via the home page of Link Intime India Private Ltd by clicking on the Public Issues link displayed prominently on the home page. It all works the same.

This dropdown will only show the active IPOs, so once the allotment status is finalized, you can select ESAF Small Finance Bank Ltd from the drop-down box. In the case of ESAF Small Finance Bank Ltd, data access will be allowed late on 10th of November 2023 or by middle of 11th of November 2023. 

    • There are 4 options available to you and you will find these 4 options on the above access page itself. You can either access the allotment status based on PAN or Application Number or DPID / Client ID combination or based on the combination of the bank account / IFSC code used to apply for the IPO. You can select any one of the options that is preferred and provide the details accordingly.

    • If you opt for the PAN Number access, then enter the 10 character income tax permanent account number (PAN). This is an alphanumeric code available either on your PAN card or on top of your income tax return.

    • The second option is to use the Application Number that you used while making an application for the IPO. The application number is available on the acknowledgement provided to you and you can use that as one of the options to access allotment status.

    • The third option is to use the DPID-Client ID combination. Remember that here you have to enter the DP id and the demat client id together as one single string. This DPID / Client ID combination is a numeric figure for CDSL demat accounts while it is an alphanumeric string for NSDL demat accounts. This combination of DP ID / Client ID of your demat account will be available in your demat statement or you can also get it online from your online trading account or trading app downloaded on the smart phone.

    • The fourth option is to query based on the combination of your bank account number and IFSC number and irrespective of how many bank accounts you have, only use the bank account used for this particular IPO application. Once you click on this option, you find two boxes. First, enter your bank account number as it is. Secondly, enter the 11-character IFSC code, which is available on your cheque book. The first 4 characters of the IFSC code are alphabets and the last 7 characters are numeric. IFSC is an abbreviation for Indian Financial System Code and is unique to each account.

    • Finally, click on the Search button
The IPO status with number of shares of ESAF Small Finance Bank Ltd allotted will be displayed on the screen in front of you. You can take a screenshot of the output page for your records. The same can be verified with the demat account on 15th November 2023 or after that. The stock is expected to list on 16th November 2023. The only question now is, what determines chances of allocation in the IPO? It boils down to allocation quota and subscription levels.

Allocation quota and subscription levels for ESAF Small Finance Bank Ltd

The table below captures the quota allocated to various categories, in terms of the number of shares and also the percentage of the total share capital raised. For investors it is the quota for the retail and the HNI that really matters.

The next thing to look at is the extent of subscription. The table below captures the extent of oversubscription for each of the categories as well as the overall subscription for ESAF Small Finance Bank Ltd.

Data Source: BSE

The response to the IPO of ESAF Small Finance Bank Ltd was strong overall, although it was only relatively strong for the retail portion. The retail subscription of 16.97 times gives a good opportunity of allotment in the IPO since the SEBI norms on retail IPO allotment is to allot the basic lot size to as many unique investors as possible. The same can be checked using the allotment checking modus operandi explained above.