With plans for a Diwali launch, Paytm’s planned IPO this year could end up becoming India’s largest yet, according to a report.
According to a Bloomberg report, Paytm plans to raise around $3 billion in its IPO this year, will a target valuation of $25-30 billion. This would make the listing India’s largest IPO yet, beating Coal India’s 2010 record.
Managing the IPO for Paytm, India’s highest-valued startup will be Morgan Stanley, Citigroup, JP Morgan Chase, with listing procedures expected to begin in July. The report said the market debut would be a mix of new and existing shares so as to meet regulatory obligations that require companies to float 10 per cent of shares within two years and 25 per cent within five years,
Paytm tussles with PhonePe for the position of India’s biggest digital payment provider, with over 1.4 billion transactions in March.
From 2016’s demonetisation to the ongoing COVID-19, disruptive events have only strengthened the adoption of digital payments, growing the market for companies like Paytm, has expanded its services from being a mobile wallet to allowing users to book movie tickets, pay bills and even buy gold.
Paytm CEO Vijay Shekhar Sharma had in January told Reuters the company could turn profitable in 2021, with the company riding on increased monetisation in 2020 driven both by wealth accounts and its lending businesses which includes credit cards, personal loans and merchant cash loans. Paytm also runs a mini-app store, a bit for independence after its brief tussle with the Google Play Store.
Paytm, which also competes with Google Pay in the UPI space, was part of an alliance the 30 per cent commission charged for in-app payments.
