The wholly owned government railways consultancy firm RITES' (Rail India Technical and Economic Service) initial public offer (IPO) received strong investor demand and got subscribed 66.59 times so far as per NSE (National Stock Exchange) data at 4.15 pm on the final day of bidding today.

The share issue was aimed to raise about Rs 466 crore received bids for over 167 crore shares against the total issue size of 2.52 crore shares as per the data. Until Thursday, the IPO was subscribed 2.11 times with the QIB (Qualified Institutional Buyers) quota being subscribed 0.31 times and NII category saw 0.48 times subscription. Its retail investors' portion saw 5.59 times the subscription while Employee Reserved category was subscribed 0.56 times.

Opening for subscription on Wednesday, the price band was fixed at Rs 180-185 per share. RITES is the first state-owned firm to hit the IPO market in the current fiscal 2018-19. Elara Capital (India), IDBI Capital Markets & Securities, IDFC Bank and SBI Capital Markets are managing the issue.

The offer closes today. It was given a subscribe rating by most brokerages.

Meanwhile, Mumbai-based Fine Organics was subscribed 8.87 times on its third day of IPO on Friday.