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Coal India’s IPO was the largest in India to date. Vandana Chatlani examines the complex preparations that were required and reveals the secrets behind the listing’s success

Make a call to Coal India and while waiting for the operator, you’ll hear what sounds like an army of workers singing the company’s song: “Hum hai aag, hum hai bijli, hum hai shakti ki khand, hum hai Coal India, Coal India hum”, (We are fire, we are electricity, we are a mine of power, we are Coal India, Coal India is us). On the company’s website the song plays against a montage of coalminers hard at work, giant coal plants stretching across acres of green fields and ordinary citizens marvelling at the magic of electricity in their everyday lives. Coal India is clearly a source of great pride.

The Kolkata-based company, which produces 80% of India’s coal, is the largest coal producer in the world. It has 397,138 employees, 64,786 million tonnes of coal reserves, eight subsidiaries, and 471 mines in 21 major coalfields stretching from the green valleys of Assam to the industrial heartland of Maharashtra. The company’s US$3.43 billion IPO in October was the icing on the cake.

The IPO was a disinvestment by the Indian government of 10% of its shareholding, 1% of which was reserved for the company’s employees. It was the largest listing to date in India. However, viewing the offering through a purely statistical lens may do it a disservice. “A bank in China can do an offering that’s much larger in terms of the proceeds, but that doesn’t mean the due diligence obligation would be larger, or even as large as it was for Coal India, because Coal India is such a massive company,” says Stephen Peepels, a partner at DLA Piper who led the team that advised Coal India on its offering.

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