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Adia takes stake in Bajaj Housing Finance IPO

By Gavin Gibbon
Adia Bajaj Reuters/Galit Seligmann
An apartment block under construction in Mumbai: Bajaj Housing Finance has more than 300,000 customers
  • 6.7m shares in lender purchased
  • Adia has other Indian holdings
  • IPO set to raise $782m

The biggest sovereign wealth fund in Abu Dhabi has strengthened its position in India as one of several anchor investors in the imminent listing of the home loans company Bajaj Housing Finance.

Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (Adia), which has assets under management totalling $968 billion, has taken a $5.6 million stake in the initial public offering (IPO), which is expected to be one of India’s largest listings this year.

Bajaj Housing Finance has more than 300,000 customers and 215 branches, with six centralised retail loan review centres.

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Adia has bought more than 6.7 million shares priced at 70 rupees each. The fund joins a number of other large investors, such as the government of Singapore and BlackRock, who were allotted shares at the upper end of the price band in the so-called anchor book, the lender said in a statement to the Bombay Stock Exchange.

Around $209 million was raised from major institutional investors.

Public subscription opened on Monday and is due to close on Wednesday. The $782 million IPO will value Bajaj Housing Finance at around $7 billion.

In the IPO, Bajaj Housing Finance is issuing new shares worth $424 million, while its parent, Bajaj Finance, is selling shares worth $357 million.

Adia has invested extensively in India, buying stakes in companies across multiple sectors including energy, real estate, telecoms, retail and food manufacturing.

The UAE is the seventh-largest investor in India, with an estimated investment of $18 billion. A comprehensive economic partnership agreement was signed between the two countries in 2022.

However, India’s trade with the GCC countries fell 12 percent to $162 billion in 2023-24, according to its Ministry of Commerce and Industry. The drop from $184 billion in 2022-23 comes as the energy-hungry country snaps up discounted Russian crude and slashes imports of Gulf oil.

Trade with the UAE dipped by less than 2 percent in 2023-24 and the country remains India’s largest partner in the GCC, with total deals of almost $84 billion.

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