New Delhi: Enthused by the overwhelming response to Maruti's initial public offer (IPO), Finance Minister Jaswant Singh on June 24 said it marked the revival of retail investors' faith in the country's capital market.

"I am happy to be here with the backdrop of the recently concluded IPO of Maruti, which was oversubscribed almost 10 times," Singh said, while launching interest rate derivatives trading in New Delhi.

"I am happy that the government and the management of Maruti have allotted the shares to the retail investors much more than the minimum required. I am sure that this is the beginning of the revival of retail investors' interest in the primary market," he said.

In the largest ever public offering in the last five years, Maruti IPO has fetched Rs 993 crore after the shares with face value of Rs 5.0 was priced at Rs 125 from the sale of 7.94 crore shares.

Viewing the overwhelming response from retail investors, government decided to allocate 60 per cent of shares to them and 40 per cent to institutional investors.

The IPO of India's leading carmaker is the biggest public offer through book building route.

The Securities and Exchange Board of India had relaxed the book-building process of Maruti to allow the company to offer green-shoe option of retaining additional 10 per cent subscription.

SEBI (Securities and Exchange Board of India) chairman, G N Bajpai, declined to hazard a guess about the price of the shares of Maruti after it gets listed. "The taste of the investors would be known when it is listed," he said.

PTI