CARE shares up 23 percent in strong debut

MUMBAI (Reuters) - Shares in Credit Analysis and Research Ltd (CARE) rose as much as 31.3 percent in their trading debut on Wednesday, after the credit rating service provider attracted strong response for its $98 million initial public offering.

CARE shares on the National Stock Exchange ended the day with gains of 23 percent at 922.55 rupees from its IPO price of 750 rupees. The shares had opened at 940 rupees and risen to as much as 985 rupees.

Investors were attracted by CARE's fundamentals as the ratings provider was seen as having a strong net worth position and no debt on a consolidated basis, analysts said.

CARE also allocated most of the shares in its IPO to institutional investors, analysts added, boosting the retail bid on the listing day.

"Since people have not been able to get decent allotment in the CARE IPO, there is lot of appetite on the day of listing as investors are looking at this stock as a good long-term bet," said Hiten Gala, senior manager advisory at Brokerage Sharekhan.

CARE had raised 5.4 billion rupees in an IPO that was over-subscribed by nearly 41 times, receiving overwhelming response from institutional buyers.

The listing price was higher than the 900 rupees IPO price expected by most analysts.

CARE is the first of three stocks expected to make their debut this week.

Jewellery retailer PC Jeweller will start trading on Thursday after raising 6.09 billion rupees at 135 rupees a share.

Telecoms tower operator Bharti Infratel Ltd will make its debut on Friday after raising $760 million this month, marking India's biggest IPO in two years.

(Reporting by Manoj Dharra; Additional reporting by Devidutta Tripathy in New Delhi; Editing by Rafael Nam and Anand Basu)