A-One Steels IPO

Easy to miss in the prospectus

• Three different FY26 revenue figures sit in the same prospectus. The restated profit and loss account shows revenue from operations of ₹4,148.57 Cr; the KPI table adds ₹18.76 Cr of government grants to reach a 'Total Revenue from Operations' of ₹4,167.33 Cr and uses that as the denominator for every disclosed margin; total income, adding other income, is ₹4,202.05 Cr. This record carries the profit and loss figure, so margins computed off the table here land a hair above the disclosed ones - 7.32% against 7.29%.
• Two FY26 EPS figures circulate. The prospectus restated basic EPS is ₹18.47, being ₹126.49 Cr of profit attributable to owners over 684.65 lakh weighted average shares. The ₹18.61 pre-issue and ₹16.50 post-issue figures on aggregator sites divide the ₹127.41 Cr of profit including non-controlling interests by period-end share counts instead. At ₹405 that is 21.93 times here against the 21.76 and 24.55 times quoted elsewhere.
• The prospectus prints two net asset values on consecutive pages: ₹119.70 in the quantitative factors, being net worth divided by closing shares, and ₹119.93 in the peer-comparison table, which uses total equity excluding non-controlling interests. This record uses ₹119.70, which reconciles exactly to the ₹819.52 Cr of net worth.
• The sixteen-fold profit jump is partly an artefact of the base. FY25 profit was ₹7.71 Cr after exceptional items but ₹12.15 Cr before them; measured before exceptional items, FY26's ₹126.88 Cr is 10.4 times FY25, not 16.5 times.
• The peer price-to-earnings anchor is weaker than it looks. MSP Steel at 61.52 times and Jai Balaji at 45.76 times carry those multiples because their FY26 earnings were depressed - MSP made ₹33.77 Cr on ₹2,842.96 Cr of revenue - so the 45.20 times 'industry average' in the prospectus is not a multiple the market was paying for steel earnings.
• Subscription numbers differ by base. The 12.23 times here is the reconciled figure on the 70,14,839 shares of net offer left after the anchor book, and its four category figures add back to that total; headlines of 11.61 times and 11.35 times measure against wider bases taken at different moments on the closing day.
• A merger is still in flight. The board approved amalgamating subsidiaries Basai Steels and Power and A-One Gold Pipes and Tubes into the company on 14 March 2026. First-motion approvals are in, the second-motion petition is pending before the NCLT, and on completion roughly 0.90% of post-merger capital will be issued to Basai's shareholders - dilution not reflected in the 7,72,34,693 post-issue share count.
• The grey market undershot and the open overshot. The last quote before listing was ₹47 on 30 September, implying ₹452 against the ₹405 issue price. The BSE opened at ₹462 and the NSE at ₹455, then the stock gave almost all of it back the same session, closing at ₹417 on the BSE and ₹416.55 on the NSE, and closed at ₹402.10 on 12 October - still below the issue price.
• The listing figures recorded here are the BSE ones, since BSE was the designated stock exchange for the offer. On the BSE the stock opened at ₹462, a 14.07% premium, and traded between ₹469.45 and ₹393.45 on debut; on the NSE it opened at ₹455, a 12.35% premium.
• The raise buys balance sheet, not capacity. ₹250 Cr of the ₹355 Cr fresh issue repays debt and the remainder is general corporate purposes, capped at 25% of gross proceeds. The 6,00,000 MTPA iron ore beneficiation plant, the 10 MW waste-heat power unit and the railway siding at Koppal are all being funded outside the offer.
• Promoter holding here is the prospectus's own 85.56% for the three named promoters. The 85.86% published elsewhere is promoters plus promoter group, and the 74.51% post-issue figure that accompanies it carries the same wider base. The 74.25% recorded here is the promoters' 5,85,80,270 shares less the 12,34,567 sold in the offer for sale, over 7,72,34,693 post-issue shares.
• Sponge iron's 10.91% revenue share understates how much the company makes. Production was 2,52,686 tonnes across Bellary I and Koppal in FY26, most of it fed straight into billets; only the surplus is sold, so the line moves with captive demand rather than with the sponge iron market.
• The offer-for-sale share count is arithmetic, not a disclosure. The prospectus sizes the offer for sale in rupees - ₹2,000 lakhs each from Sandeep Kumar and Sunil Jallan and ₹1,000 lakhs from Krishan Kumar Jalan - and leaves the share count as a placeholder, because the count is only fixed once the price is. The 12,34,567 shares recorded here is those three amounts at the ₹405 final price, and the 74.25% post-issue promoter holding is computed from it; both move if the registrar rounded any seller differently.