Paytm’s highly-anticipated IPO started today, with retail investors subscribing to 78 percent or 0.78 times their allotted shares within the first hour of the offering. The total subscription stood at 0.18 times, or 18 percent, as per BSE data.
Bids for 88,23,924 shares have been made out of the total of 4,83,89,422 shares on offer. Retail individual investors (RII) secured 78 percent of the allocated shares, bidding for 68,79,912 shares against 87,98,076 on offer. The estimated number of institutional investors has yet to come.
While Qualified institutional buyers (QIBs) have been allocated a total of 2,63,94,231 shares, with bids placed for 16,78,788 shares (6 percent or 0.06 times). Non-institutional investors (NII), on the other hand, subscribed to 2,65,224 equity shares (2 percent or 0.02 times) of the total 1,31,97,115 shares offered.
The offer includes a primary issue worth Rs 8,300 crore and an offer for sale (OFS) for Rs 10 crore. Paytm raised Rs 8,235 crore ($1.1 billion) from anchor investors on November 3rd in India’s largest anchor round, including Blackrock (Rs 1,045 crore), CPPIB (Rs 938 crore), Birla Mutual Fund (Rs 555 crore), and GIC (Rs 533 crore).
The anchor round attracted global mutual funds such as Vanguard and Fidelity, as well as emerging markets-focused investors including Standard Life Aberdeen, UBS, and RWC, along with global tech and fintech-focused funds including Alkeon, Sands Capital, Marshall Wace, Viking, and Citadel.
Paytm plans to use the funds from the IPO to strengthen its ecosystem by acquiring and attracting more consumers, satisfying general corporate demands, and financing strategic collaborations, mergers, and acquisitions, as well as new business ventures.
Paytm is India’s fastest-growing digital ecosystem for consumers and merchants. It is India’s leading payments platform, with a GMV of about 4 lakh crore in FY21. As of June 30, 2021, it offered payment services, commerce and cloud services, and financial services to 33.7 crore users and over 2.2 crore merchants.
The book running lead managers for the public issue include Goldman Sachs (India) Securities, Morgan Stanley India Company, Axis Capital, JP Morgan India Private Limited, ICICI Securities, Citigroup Global Markets India Private Limited, and HDFC Bank. The issue’s registrar will be Link Intime India, which will also handle the allotment process.
One97 Communications, Paytm’s parent company, was founded by Vijay Shekhar Sharma in 2000 and has grown to become India’s biggest digital payment service platform. Although it began as a provider of value-added services, it currently offers a wide range of financial services in addition to serving as an online mobile wallet and payment platform.
