Indian payments giant Paytm has increased its IPO (initial public offering) funding to USD 2.44 billion (about 15.616 billion yuan). The company’s CEO Vijay Shekhar Shire Ma (Vijay Shekhar Sharma) today said that Paytm does not require refinancing in the short term.
A couple of days ago, Paytm said in a document submitted to the Securities and Exchange Commission of India (SEBI) that in this IPO, Paytm will issue new shares worth Rs 83 billion (about US$1.1 billion), and existing shareholders will sell Stocks worth up to 100 billion rupees. This will take the total size of the IPO to Rs 183 billion (approximately US$ 2.44 billion).
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As per the previous plan, Paytm will issue 830 billion rupees in new shares, and existing shareholders such as SoftBank and Berkshire Hathaway will sell about 830 billion rupees worth of shares for about 166 billion rupees (about US$2.2 billion). Paytm said that after increasing the scale of IPO financing, the company will have sufficient funds.
Sharma, the Chairman and the CEO of Paytm, said in an interview, “We have no reason to raise more funds unless something unexpected happens. For our current business plan, our capital is already very sufficient.”
He also said that investors were very interested in Paytm’s IPO and even surprised him. The IPO will accept subscriptions between November 8 and 10. Paytm plans to set the issue price at 2080 rupees to 2150 rupees (approximately US$27.80 to US$28.72), seeking a valuation of approximately US$20 billion.
It is expected that Paytm shares will begin trading on the National Stock Exchange of India (NSE) and Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) around November 18. Paytm’s IPO has attracted much attention, and it will become India’s largest IPO to date. JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, ICICI Securities, Goldman Sachs, Axis Capital, Citigroup, and HDFC Bank are the lead book-runners for Paytm’s IPO.
The CEO further says that investors have not set a timetable for when Paytm will be profitable or break even. There have been previous reports that Paytm expects the company to achieve breakeven within 18 months.
