SoftBank Eyes India Payday As Three Portfolio Startups Head For IPOs In August First Week

Via its associates, SoftBank will sell shares in IPO-bound Ola Electric, whose offer opens on Aug. 2. It will also pare stakes in Snapdeal Group's Unicommerce and Brainbees Solutions Ltd., which operates FirstCry. The two offers open on Aug. 6.

SoftBank currently holds 21.98% of Ola Electric and will reduce its shareholding by 2.68% in the IPO. The investor's average weighted cost of acquisition is around Rs 51.37. Ola Electric's IPO, at the upper band, is priced at Rs 76 per share, meaning SoftBank will get returns of about 1.48 times on its investment in the IPO.

In the FirstCry IPO, the price band has been set at Rs 465 per share. SoftBank is the single largest shareholder in FirstCry and of the 5.43 crore shares that compose the offer-for-sale portion, it will offload about 37.35% or 2.03 crore shares.

The weighted cost of acquisition per share for SoftBank is Rs 154.4, implying 3 times gains from that IPO.

In the Unicommerce IPO, which is a pure offer-for-sale, SoftBank will offload 1.61 crore shares, which is more than the 94 lakh shares that parent AceVector Ltd. is selling.

SoftBank's weighted cost of acquisition per share stands at Rs 30.87, compared to the upper price band of Rs 108 per share, implying 3.5 times gains.

With Ola Electric's IPO set to open on Friday, SoftBank is set to get ball rolling on the gains from its near-decade-long bets in India.