Fine Organics goes public

The initial public offering by Fine Organics Industries required that the company’s financial statements be converted as per the new accounting standards, said a partner at Duane Morris & Selvam, who worked on the deal.

The company completed its ₹6 billion (US$86 million) IPO and listed 7.6 million equity shares on the Bombay Stock Exchange and the National Stock Exchange of India after its financial statements were scrutinized to comply with the Indian generally accepted accounting principles (Indian GAAP).

“The financial statements had to be converted from Indian GAAP into Ind-AS [Indian Accounting Standards] as the prospectus would not have been filed by 31 March 2018,” said Jamie Benson, a partner at Duane Morris & Selvam, who was international adviser to the book running lead managers in the IPO. He added that converting the financial statements was a key challenge.

“SEBI [Securities and Exchange Board of India] rules required that if the prospectus was filed after [31 March], it had to include financial statements for the last two fiscal years prepared in accordance with Ind-AS and pro forma Ind-AS financial statements for fiscal 2015. We had already drafted all of the disclosure for the [draft red herring prospectus (DHRP)] based on the Indian GAAP financial statements, so we had to go through and change the related disclosure for the [red herring prospectus (RHP)],” said Benson.