India Pesticides files DRHP for Rs 800 crore IPO

India Pesticides on Wednesday filed the draft red herring prospectus (DRHP) for Rs 800 crore initial public offering (IPO).

The company aims to raise Rs 100 crore through fresh issuance and Rs 700 crore through an offer-for-sale (OFS) by promoter. Anand Swarup Agarwal will sell shares worth Rs 281 crore through OFS, while other shareholders will offload shares of Rs 419 crore.

The price band and the minimum bid lot shall be decided by the company and the promoter selling shareholders in consultation with the book running lead managers.

The R&D-focused agrochemical technical company proposed to utilise the net proceeds towards funding the working capital requirements and general corporate purposes.

Incorporated in 1984, India Pesticides has a growing formulations business in herbicides, insecticides and fungicide segments and also manufactures APIs.

It stands to be the only domestic manufacturer and amongst the top 5 companies globally for several technical products such as Folpet and Cynomoxanil, used to make fungicides that control fungal growth across variety of crops.

At present, the company operates out to two manufacturing facilities out of the Lucknow and Hardoi in Uttar Pradesh having an aggregate capacity of 19,500 million tonnes (mt) for technicals and 6500 MT for the formulations vertical.

The company has registrations and licenses for 22 agrochemical technicals and 124 formulations for sale in India and 27 agrochemical technicals and 34 formulations for exports purpose.

India Pesticides has a decade long relationship with a diverse customer which includes crop protection product manufacturing companies, such as Syngenta Asia Pacific, United Phosphorus, Ascenza Agro, SA, Conquest Crop Protection Pty, Sharda Cropchem and Stotras.

Axis Capital and JM Financial are the BRLMS and KFin Technologies Private is the registrar to the issue.