US Investment Firm GQG Partners Buys 5.96% Stake In Patanjali Foods Via OFS Route

US-based investment firm GQG Partners has bought a 5.96 per cent stake in edible oil firm Patanjali Foods, which is promoted by Baba Ramdev-led Patanjali Ayurved.
     
GQG Partners has bought 2,15,64,517 equity shares of Patanjali Foods through Offer For Sale (OFS) route, according to a regulatory filing. This translates into a 5.96 per cent stake in Patanjali Foods.
     
Patanjali Foods share price closed at Rs 1,332.75 apiece on Wednesday, up 4.64 per cent from Tuesday.
     
The market cap of Patanjali Foods stood at Rs 48,245 crore. At current valuation, GQG Partners' shareholding in Patanjali Foods is worth nearly Rs 2,900 crore.
     
Last week, Patanjali Foods announced that its promoter Patanjali Ayurved will sell up to 2.53 crore shares of the company through OFS in a bid to increase public float. The floor price was kept at Rs 1,000.
     
The two-day Offer For Sale (OFS) was launched on July 13-14 by promoter entity Patanjali Ayurved to pare its total stake in Patanjali Foods by around 7 per cent to meet the minimum public shareholding requirement.
     
Patanjali Ayurved's sale of shares of Patanjali Foods got oversubscribed more than two times at the end of the two-day offer on Friday.
     
The offer received bids for 76,34,567 shares from retail investors as against 25,33,964 shares on offer, translating into three times subscription on Friday.
     
On Thursday, 2.28 crore shares were offered for non-retail investors and cumulative bids for over 4.56 crore shares were received, reflecting two times subscriptions.
     
After the OFS, Patanjali Foods Ltd on Saturday said that the shareholding of its promoters has come down to 73.82 per cent from 80.82 per cent earlier.
     
In June, GQG Partners and other foreign investors bought close to USD 1 billion of additional stakes in Adani group companies.
     
Patanjali Group had acquired bankrupt Ruchi Soya Industries and later renamed the company as Patanjali Foods.
     
Earlier, Patanjali Foods had launched a Rs 4,300 crore Follow-on Public Offer (FPO) to reduce promoters' stake and increase the public shareholding. Patanjali Foods' total income increased to Rs 31,821.45 crore in the last fiscal against Rs 24,284.38 crore in 2021-22.
     
Out of the total revenue, the turnover of the edible oil segment rose to Rs 25,253.33 crore last fiscal from Rs 22,468.64 crore in the previous year.
     
Food & FMCG segment revenue jumped nearly four-fold to Rs 6,218.08 crore in the 2022-23 fiscal from Rs 1,683.24 crore in the year-ago period.