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Lotus Eye Care Hospital IPO Fully Subscribed

Amidst heavy selling pressure in the stock markets, the IPO from Lotus Eye Care Hospital Limited issue was subscribed 1.18 times against one crore shares on offer, according to data available on the National Stock Exchange. The company had revised its price band downward to Rs 36-38, from the earlier band of Rs 38-42. The non-institutional investors' part got subscribed 2.63 times the shares on offer, while the Qualified Institutional Buyers got subscribed 0.63 times. Retail investors' portion was also fully subscribed at the end of the day's trading.

Lotus proposes to utilise the net proceeds of the issue to partly finance its Rs 5,500 lakh expansion plan. Lotus plans to strengthen its presence in southern part of India by providing three fold services in the eye-care industry. It proposes to set up two primary eye care units in Bangalore and one unit in Chennai, with focus on diagnosis and dispensation of simple eye problems and optical sales. Further, secondary eye-care centers will be opened at RS Puram, Tirupur and Karur and a tertiary eye-care center at Salem. The construction at Peelamedu and RS Puram has already been commenced. The construction of hospitals at Tirupur, Salem and Karur will be commenced after acquisition of suitable land.

Lotus Eye Care Hospital is promoted by Dr SK Sundaramurthy, and at present has a network of four eye care hospitals based at Coimbatore (two), Salem (one) and Tirupur (one).

EH News Bureau