Ola Electric IPO: Bhavish Aggarwal To Offload Less Stock Than Planned
Founder promoter Bhavish Aggarwal has reduced the number of shares he is going to offload in the Ola Electric IPO by nearly 10 lakh.
Investors of Ola Electric Mobility Ltd., led by Founder promoter Bhavish Aggarwal, will offload less stock than previously planned in the Aug. 2-6 initial public offering.
The IPO of the maker of India's best-selling electric scooters includes an offer-for-sale by existing investors to offload about 8.5 crore shares, according to the red-herring prospectus released on Saturday. That figure stood at about 9.5 crore shares in the draft IPO papers.
Only Aggarwal has reduced the number of shares he is going to sell—from 4,73,94,014 shares as mentioned in the DRHP to 3,79,15,211 shares as mentioned in the RHP. Ashna Advisors LLP, with 6,01,828 shares, has increased its number of shares on offer, to emerge as one of the top offloaders. Two other entities, Barry S. Sternlicht and Sarin Family India LLC, find no mention in the updated list of investors offloading stock.
The fresh issue of Rs 5,500 crore remains unchanged. The price band and total number of new shares are likely to be disclosed during a press meet on Monday.
Ola Electric will launch a smaller-than-planned initial public offering on Aug. 2, at a reduced valuation of $4-4.2 billion, two persons aware of the matter told NDTV Profit on Friday. The IPO—the first by an Indian automaker in 20 years—will remain open until Aug. 6 to include a weekend in between.
The anchor book will open on Aug. 1. The listing will take place Aug. 9.
On June 20, 2024, the Bengaluru-based EV startup received approval of the Securities and Exchange Board of India to float its IPO, with certain observations. Those seem to have been ironed out now.
Size And Valuation
In December 2023, the maker of India’s best-selling electric scooters filed draft IPO papers with the markets regulator to raise as much as Rs 7,250 crore—Rs 5,500 in fresh stock and Rs 1,750 crore via an offer-for-sale by existing investors. That now stands revised lower to Rs 6,200 crore, or $740 million, the second person said.
Both sources requested anonymity, citing the confidential nature of the information. A spokesperson for Ola Electric refused to comment on the matter.
The valuation too has been trimmed. While Ola Electric was valued at $5.4 billion in its final private funding round, NDTV Profit’s calculations showed that the company was worth Rs 58,954 crore or about $7 billion at the time of the filing of its draft IPO papers. That now stands revised to $4-4.2 billion, the second person said.
“We don’t have any valuation targets. The valuation pricing is set by the market,” Aggarwal had told NDTV Profit during an interaction at Ola Electric’s Bengaluru HQ in late June. “The price band will be published in due course as we go through the steps. We’ll definitely do that in consultation with all our bankers, etc. But our focus, as you’ve seen (in the monthly numbers), is in growing the industry and in growing our numbers—not valuations.”
