Ashapura Logistics makes stellar market debut, shares list at 28% premium

Shares of small and medium enterprise (SME) Ashapura Logistics Ltd made a solid start on Tuesday, August 6, with the stock listing at an over 28% premium on the NSE Emerge platform.

The Ashapura Logistics stock opened the session at ₹185 on Tuesday compared with its initial public offering (IPO) price of ₹144 apiece. Within minutes of trade, the stock rose 5% further to hit an intra-day high of ₹194.25.

The listing translated into smart gains for successful bidders who were allotted shares in the Ashapura Logistics IPO. Such shareholders would be sitting on a minimum profit of ₹9,250 for every single lot of 1,000 shares (₹9.25 x 1,000) as soon as trading began in the stock.

The ₹52.66-crore Ashapura Logistics IPO had witnessed strong demand when it was open for subscription from July 30 to August 1.

The SME IPO was oversubscribed nearly 186 times, receiving bids for over 45.24 crore shares against 24.34 lakh shares on offer.

The non-institutional investors’ (NIIs) category was booked the most, around 290 times. The retail portion of the issue was oversubscribed by more than 174 times, while the qualified institutional buyers (QIBs) segment saw a subscription of over 128 times.

To recall, the Ashapura Logistics IPO was a 100% book-built issue that comprised an entirely fresh issuance of 36.57 lakh shares. The price band was fixed at ₹136 to ₹144 per share, with a lot size or a minimum bid quantity of 1,000 shares.

Ahead of the launch of the IPO, Ashapura Logistics had raised ₹14.98 crore in its anchor investor round. The company allocated 10.4 lakh shares to a total of 11 anchor investors at an average price of ₹144 apiece.

The company had earlier said that it planned to use the proceeds from the IPO to fund its capital expenditure requirement for the purchase of trucks and ancillary equipment, for the construction of warehouses at the facilities located at Mundra (Gujarat), to fund the incremental working capital requirement and for general corporate purposes.

Established in 2002, Ashapura Logistics is a leading solutions provider for integrated imports, exports, pre and post-custom clearance formalities, transportation, warehouse and distribution and door-to-door services.

The company’s freight-forwarding team is based in Ahmedabad, with branches at seaports like Hazira, Mundra, Pipavav, Kandla, JNPT, and other ICDs (inland container depots). They provide freight forwarding and CHA (customs house agent) services to existing customers.

As of March 31, 2024, Ashapura Logistics had 250 commercial trucks in its fleet. Also, the company managed and operated 7 warehouses with a total storage capacity of approximately 284,000 sq. ft as of July 2024.

The company’s revenue in the financial year 2023-24 had dropped nearly 10.5% to ₹199.3 crore compared to ₹222.6 crore in 2022-23. However, profit after tax (PAT) rose almost 30.5% to ₹12.3 crore in FY24 compared with ₹9.5 crore in FY23.