GMR Infrastructure, part of the group in the consortium building the New Delhi airport, called off a share sale on Tuesday because of poor investor demand even after slashing the size by four-fifths to $100 million. GMR shares fell 8.8 per cent to Rs 141.65. The GMR withdrawal happened at a time when a number of companies, including GMR, Unitech, HCC and HDIL, had launched on Monday share sales for nearly $2 billion, hoping the stock market rally would have revived investor appetite.

“The management committee of the board of directors of the company have decided to withdraw the QIP in light of existing market conditions,” GMR Infra said in a filing to the Bombay Stock Exchange. The management committee of the board had earlier decided to allot shares on June 29 to qualified institutional buyers (QIBs) pursuant to the shareholders nod earlier this month for raising up to Rs 5,000 crore.

“Nearly half a dozen companies are in the market to raise over $2 billion from big institutional investors. The bunching of issuers also created a problem for GMR. More companies are in the pipeline. So liquidity is somewhat tight,” said a market source.

On Tuesday, Sobha Developers, the Bangalore-based real estate developer, raised $112 million through the QIP issue. The company sold 25 million shares at Rs 209.36 to around nine global investors, including Capital International and Albis.

Said Prateek Agrawal, Head, Equity, Bharti AXA Investment Managers, “We believe that while the financial markets have improved and money is there on the sidelines, risk appetite is yet to return fully. We believe that the best of company may be able to raise monies from the market. However, pricing remains the key.”

... contd.