The company, which is taking the book building route, has offered under ESOP shares to its employees at Rs 255 per share (face value Rs 4). Though the company officials have been tight-lipped on the target price for the issue, the estimated price is likely to be around Rs 510 (on Rs 4 face value), on the assumption that the pricing would be double the ESOP price. Had the par value been Rs 10, the price could be around Rs 1275.

Through its maiden public offering, HCLT is offering 1.42 crore equity shares through the book building route. According to the draft offer document filed with Sebi, of the total offer, 1.278 crore shares are being offered through the book building route and the balance 14.2lakh shares would be offered to the public on fixed price basis after a price is arrived at the end of the initial book building process. Kotak Mahindra Capital is the book running lead manager to the issue.

For the year ended June 1999, the company projects to a earn a net profit of Rs 104 crore from a total income of Rs 294.69 crore. This gives a net profit margin in excess of 35 per cent, which is higher than that of Infosys (26.1), Wipro (28.6) and NIIT (26.8). On an enhanced equity base of Rs 49.8 crore (12.44 crore shares of Rs 4 each), the Rs 104 crore net profit gives an earning per share of Rs 8.36.

According to the draft offer document, the main objectives of the present issue are to list the company's shares to give more liquidity to the employees who have shares under the company's ESOP scheme, to fund its capital expenditure programme which is pegged at Rs 13 crore, to meet its working capital requirements at Rs 150.05 crore (for the next two years) and to meet its fund requirements forfuture acquisitions. Post-offer, the shares of the company will be listed at Delhi, Mumbai and the National stock exchanges.