Indian IT firm Happiest Minds more than doubles in market debut (updated)

Happiest Minds Technologies

17/09/2020 06:44

(Adds background on IT sector, company, analyst quote)
    BENGALURU, Sept 17 (Reuters) - Shares of India's Happiest
Minds Technologies Ltd  HAPP.NS  more than doubled in their
stock market debut on Thursday, underscoring strong investor
interest in IT services firms during the COVID-19 pandemic.
    The stock opened at 350 rupees, well above its initial
public offering (IPO) price of 166 rupees that valued the
company at about 24.4 billion rupees ($331 million). At its high
of 394.95 rupees, the company was valued at 58 billion rupees.
    Exchange data showed investors had bid for nearly 151 times
the number of shares on offer from the company led by Ashok
Soota, a veteran of India's nearly $200 billion IT industry who
also co-founded larger firm Mindtree Ltd  MINT.NS . Soota is
also Happiest Minds' top individual shareholder.
    The Bengaluru-based company derives 97% of its revenue from
fast-growing digital IT services - such as analytics and
artificial intelligence- and cloud-enabled services - compared
with 30%-50% for traditional Indian IT services peers, analysts
at Motilal Oswal estimated this month.
    "Investors are realising the resilience of the sector as
well as strong demand for IT, post the COVID-19 crisis," Sneha
Poddar, an analyst at Motilal Oswal said on Thursday.
    "The fact that Happiest Minds comes from a strong management
background also acts as a key positive ... as people have seen
how Mindtree has performed."
    In the year ended March 2020, Happiest Minds' revenue jumped
18% to nearly 7 billion rupees, IPO documents showed, while it
reported a profit of 717 million rupees, about five times as
much as a year earlier.
    India's IT stocks  .NIFTYIT  have been among the few sectors
to clock gains in 2020, gaining 28% so far this year.
    The Indian stock market has seen only a handful of IPOs this
year compared with more than a dozen in 2019, as the coronavirus
crisis hammered risk appetite. The highly awaited listing of SBI
Cards and Payment Services Ltd  SBIC.NS , the year's biggest,
got a tepid response in mid-March.  urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL4N2B91RY
    
($1 = 73.7400 Indian rupees)

 (Reporting by Sachin Ravikumar and Chris Thomas; Editing by
Anil D'Silva and Rashmi Aich)
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