Indian hotel operator Samhi Hotels' IPO oversubscribed five times

BENGALURU, Sept 18 (Reuters) - The initial public offering (IPO) of Samhi Hotels (SAMH.NS), which operates Marriott, Hyatt and IHG hotels in India, was oversubscribed by over five times, inviting bids worth 41.96 billion rupees ($504 million), exchange data showed on Monday.

Investors bid for 333 million shares by the final day of bidding, 5.33 times more than the 62.5 million shares on offer, with institutional investors showing the most interest, the data showed.

Samhi Hotels 13.7-billion-rupees IPO comprises a fresh issue of shares worth up to 12 billion rupees and an offer-for-sale of up to 1.7 billion rupees from existing investors including Goldman Sachs (GS.N).

The loss-making company has set a price band of 119 rupees to 126 rupees per share for the IPO, according to a newspaper advertisement. Its expected to make its trading debut next week.

Samhi Hotelss revenue from operations more than doubled to 7.39 billion rupees in the year ended March 31, helping its net loss narrow to 3.39 billion rupees from 4.43 billion rupees a year earlier.

Gurugram-based Samhi was incorporated in 2010 and has a portfolio of 31 operating hotels in 14 cities. Marriott (MAR.O) accounted for more than 60% of its revenue last financial year, while Hyatt (H.N) and InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) (IHG.L) contributed a little over 18% each.

Samhi plans to use 9 billion rupees of the proceeds to repay debt, according to its IPO prospectus. Its consolidated outstanding debt was 31.18 billion rupees as of the end of June.

JM Financial and Kotak Mahindra Capital are the lead managers of the IPO.

($1 = 83.3067 Indian rupees)