Unihealth Consultancy IPO lists at 2.27% premium, tapers later

Tepid listing for Unihealth Consultancy IPO on the NSE-SME

Unihealth Consultancy Ltd had a very tepid listing on 21st September 2023, listing at a small premium of 2.27%, but subsequently losing ground marginally. Of course, the stock still closed above the IPO issue price, but it has only closed just above the IPO price. In a sense, the markets came under pressure as the Nifty fell by 159 points on the day and the Sensex fell by 571 points for the day on 21st September 2023. Over the last 2 days, the Nifty has fallen by nearly 400 points while the Sensex has fallen by nearly 1,600 points, so the IPO stocks cannot really escape that kind of pressure in the overall markets. It was more about the macro impact hitting the markets after the Fed tone in the latest statement turned out to be more hawkish than what the markets had expected. However, despite such a weak day of trading, the listing of the stock was at a small premium of 2.27% although it could not sustain the gains for the day and closed a bit lower than the listing price.

The stock of Unihealth Consultancy Ltd did show some iota of strength on opening and tried to hold higher. However, the pressure of the market overall was just too much to handle. The stock closed above the IPO prices issue price but it tapered below the listing price of the day. Being an NSE SME IPO, it is only traded on the SME segment of NSE. Unihealth Consultancy Ltd opened 2.27% higher and the opening price turned out to be the virtual midpoint between the high price and the low price of the day, an indicator of volatility. With subscription of 24.61X for the retail portion, 37.65X for the HNI / NII portion and 5.97X for the QIB portion; the overall subscription was relatively healthy at 18.22X. The subscription numbers were strong that it allowed the stock to list at a premium even on a day when the market sentiments were very weak. However, it could not sustain the gains for the day as the selling pressure on the market was just too overpowering.

Stock closes Day-1 at substantial premium

Here is the pre-open price discovery for the Unihealth Consultancy IPO on the NSE.

Data Source: NSE

The SME IPO of Unihealth Consultancy Ltd was priced in the price band of ₹126 to ₹132 via the book building format. On 21st September 2023, the stock of Unihealth Consultancy Ltd listed on the NSE at a price of ₹135, a premium of 2.27% on the IPO issue price of ₹132 (discovered at the upper end of the price band in the IPO). Not surprisingly, the price was discovered at the upper end of the band for the IPO. However, the stock faced pressure and could only traverse briefly above the listing price as it closed the day at a price of ₹133, which is 0.76% above the IPO issue price but -1.48% below the listing price of the stock on the first day of listing. In a nutshell, the stock of Unihealth Consultancy Ltd had closed the day between the IPO price and the listing price. Ironically, the close of the stock was also between the high price and the low price of the day. Like the upper circuit price, even the lower circuit price on listing day is calculated on the listing price and not on the IPO price. The opening price actually turned out to be in between the low price and the high price of the day, which his indicative of a volatile day of trading on the NSE. Here is the pre-open price discovery for the SME IPO of Unihealth Consultancy Ltd on the NSE.

How prices traversed for Unihealth Consultancy IPO on listing day

On Day-1 of listing i.e., on 21st September 2023, Unihealth Consultancy Ltd touched a high of ₹141.75 on the NSE and a low of ₹130.25 per share. The high price of the day was well above the opening price of the stock while the stock closed at the mid-point of the day, which also represents the median price between the high price and the low price of a volatile day of trading. What is truly appreciable is that the stock closed in the positive despite the overall Nifty falling by over 159 points on 21st September 2023 and dipping below the psychological level of 19,800 on a closing basis for the listing day. The stock closed at a small discount to the listing price, but also marginally above the IPO issue price, which is the gratifying factor. For the SME IPOs, 5% is the upper limit and also the lower circuit on the listing price on the day of listing.

Robust volumes for Unihealth Consultancy IPO on listing day

Let us now turn to the volumes of the stock on the NSE. On Day-1 of listing, the Unihealth Consultancy Ltd stock traded a total of 15.15 lakh shares on NSE SME segment amounting to value of ₹2,056.92 lakhs on the first day.  The order book during the day showed a lot of selling with the sell orders consistently exceeding the buy orders at any point of time. That also led the stock to close weak at the close of trading on 21st September 2023. It must be noted here that Unihealth Consultancy Ltd is in the trade to trade (T2T) segment so only delivery trades are possible on the stock. Hence the entire volume for the day purely represents the delivery volumes.

At the close of Day-1 of listing, Unihealth Consultancy Ltd had a market capitalization of ₹204.82 crore with free-float market cap of ₹63.90 crore. It has a total of 154 lakh shares as the issued capital of the company. As stated earlier, since the trading is on the T2T segment, the entire volume of 15.15 lakh shares during the day is accounted for only by delivery trades.

Brief on the business model of Unihealth Consultancy IPO

Unihealth Consultancy Ltd was incorporated in 2010 in Mumbai, to provide quality and affordable healthcare services. The company is based in India but has operational presence in multiple countries across the African continent, where it is largely focused on. The company has several verticals under the banner. These include the Medical Centres vertical, Hospitals vertical, Consultancy Services vertical, Pharma distribution vertical, Medical Consumables vertical, and Medical Value Travel. Under the aegis of Unihealth Consultancy Ltd, the company operates a combined capacity of 200 operational hospital beds across two multi-specialty facilities. These first facility is the UMC Victoria Hospital in Kampala, Uganda while the second is the UMC Zahir Hospital in Kano, Nigeria with bed strength of 80 beds. With its strong global footprint and exposure to global best practices, Unihealth Consultancy Ltd is currently providing project management consultancy services to set up a 300 bed Health City in Undri, Pune. This is being implemented by Unihealth Consultancy on behalf of PHRC Lifespaces Organization.

The company has been promoted by Dr Anurag Shah and Dr Akshay Parmar. The promoter holding (including the promoter group) in the company currently stands at 95.32%. However, post the fresh issue of shares and the IPO, the promoter equity holding share will reduce to 68.80%. The fresh issue funds will be used by the company for investing in its JV in Kampala, Uganda as well as the joint venture in Nigeria and Tanzania. Part of the funds raised will also be applied for general corporate purposes. While Unistone Capital Private Ltd will be the lead manager to the issue, Bigshare Services Private Ltd will be the registrar to the issue. The market maker for the issue is Rikhav Securities Ltd.