The offer for sale of Shreeji Shipping Global started on 3 November for non‑retail investors, who could bid at a floor price of Rs 835 per share. The OFS for retail investors will open only on 4 November. On that day the retail bids will be placed together with the non‑retail bids that have carried forward from the first day.
In a normal OFS, the big investors place their bids on day T while the small or retail investors do so on the next day T+1. If a non‑retail bidder's bid is not chosen, that bidder can choose to roll the bid over to the next day, and can also change the bid amount that day. Bids that are less than the minimum price are refused.
Retail investors place their bids through their brokers and the bidding runs roughly from 9:15 AM to 3:30 PM on the day.
What the retail category gets
In an OFS, a retail bidder is any participant whose bids are capped at Rs 2 lakh. At least 10% of the shares being offered are reserved for this group, provided that genuine bids come in.
In the LIC offer, 8,22,24,971 shares were allotted to the retail segment, whereas in the Hindustan Copper offer the retail portion came to about 58.02 lakh shares.
Retail investors also must be given the option to bid at the cut‑off price, so that they can participate without having to pick a price themselves.
For Shreeji Shipping Global, the retail bids placed on 4 November are due to settle on T+2, which is a day after the non-retail bids accepted on the first day.
The discount question
In the LIC offer, retail investors and eligible employees were allowed to bid at Rs 373.10 per share, whereas the cut‑off for non‑retail was Rs 383.10.
The stories about other offers do not follow the same pattern.
For Shreeji Shipping Global, the reports that have come out till now give the Rs 835 floor price and state that no retail discount applies. The notice for this offer sets a nil retail discount, so retail buyers bid at the same Rs 835 floor price.
