(Reuters) -Indian dairy products maker Milky Mist has filed for a 20.35 billion rupees ($235.94 million) initial public offering, draft papers showed on Monday.
The company will raise up to 17.85 billion rupees by selling new shares, while existing investors plan to offload shares worth 2.5 billion rupees.
India’s IPO market has picked up pace, after demand was dented by global geopolitical tensions and trade war concerns in the first half of the year.
According to a Reuters report, Indian companies could raise some $2.4 billion through IPOs this month, marking the strongest month since December last year.
Food and beverages constitute the largest share in India’s consumption basket. In a segment where unorganized players with limited distribution capacities dominate, Milky Mist is betting on the growing share of health-conscious, working-age population spending more on branded products, including high protein items such as curd and cottage cheese.
The company will use about 7.5 billion rupees of proceeds from the fresh issue to repay debt.
The rest will be used to expand and modernize its manufacturing facility in the southern state of Tamil Nadu, deploy more ice-cream freezers and chocolate coolers across retail outlets and other corporate purposes.
Milky Mist has a presence in about 22 states in India, covering more than 350,000 retail touchpoints. It also exports to more than 15 countries.
The company’s profit during the fiscal year ended March 31 more than doubled to 460.74 million rupees. Its revenue from operations rose nearly 29% to 23.5 billion rupees.
($1 = 86.2490 Indian rupees)
(Reporting by Ananta Agarwal in Bengaluru; Editing by Shilpi Majumdar)
