Ashneer Grover, the former managing director and co-founder of BharatPe, has confessed that he gained handsome rupees of 2.25 crore from the Zomato Initial public offering (IPO) under 8 minutes of its July 2017 release.
Grover stated in his memoir, “Doglapan,” that the Initial public offering was oversubscribed over thirty times and that he earned an allocation of stocks valued as much as Rs 3 crore as a result.
“My RMs (relationship managers), based on grey-market premiums, were expecting the Zomato share to list between Rs 85-90, as against an issue price of Rs 76. I, however, was certain that it would do far better. When the share opened on a listing day at Rs 116 per share, I mandated them to sell all my shares,” he wrote.
By the time the trade got executed, “I got a selling price of Rs 136 per share. With my landing cost after interest being between Rs 82-85, 1 ended up making over Rs 2.25 crore,” he said. “Within eight minutes of the Zomato IPO opening, I had made over Rs 2.25 crore.”
Grover alleged that shortly after the Zomato Public offering, he began acting a bit ravenous.
“I went in for the Car Trade IPO but ended up losing Rs 25 lakh there,” he said.
Grover, who is now engaged in a legal dispute against BharatPe, a firm he co-founded, claimed that he was bullish about the Zomato Offering on a number of levels.
“Of course, I knew of Deepinder (Goyal), and I am a big believer in his ability to persevere and keep building big. Fundamentally, with the pandemic the ticket size of their orders had grown, as people were ordering food from home for 3-4 members in the family, as against single rolls in office, thereby increasing Zomato’s absolute margins,” he wrote.
Furthermore, there was no possibility of the take-rate dropping because businesses relied entirely on app sales amid shutdowns.
“On the other hand, job insecurity among delivery boys kept delivery costs in check. In fact, COVID magically solved the food delivery economics in the country overnight, just like it skyrocketed UPI penetration,” said Grover.
After their financing contract during the Offering of FSN E-Commerce Ventures Ltd., which operates Nykaa, broke apart, Grover with Kotak Mahindra Bank engaged in a fierce dispute.
In early December, According to individuals familiar with the events, BharatPe sought an appeal at the Singapore International Arbitration Centre to regain the firm’s constrained ownership and founder status from its former co-founder Ashneer Grover.
According to the reports, the firm has also demanded that SIAC give top executive and co-founder of BharatPe Shashvat Nakrani Grover’s restricted stock shares in place for a lump sum payment of Rs 33 lakh.
