Ola Electric IPO: Anchor Investors Pick Nearly Half Of The Shares On Offer

Anchor investors, led by mutual funds, have piled into the Ola Electric IPO, picking up almost half of the total shares on offer.

The board of directors of Ola Electric Mobility Ltd. has finalised the allocation of 36,35,56,135 equity shares to anchor investors at the upper end of the price band of Rs 72–76 apiece, according to an exchange filing on Thursday. That equates to Rs 2,763 crore.

Mutual funds—led by those managed by the State Bank of India, Nippon Life Asset Management Ltd. and HDFC Asset Management Co.—accounted for 40% of the anchor book.

The Ola Electric IPO includes a fresh issue of stock—72.37 crore shares, worth Rs 5,500 crore—and an offer-for-sale by existing shareholders—8.49 crore shares, aggregating to Rs 645.56 crore, according to the red herring prospectus.

Founder and promoter Bhavish Aggarwal is offloading 3.8 crore shares—the biggest chunk—while investors SoftBank Group Corp. and Tiger Global are selling 2.4 crore and 65 lakh shares, respectively.

The price band for the offering is set at Rs 72–76 per share, which pegs the valuation of the company at Rs 33,522 crore, or about $4 billion—a steep discount from $5.4 billion at its last funding round in December 2023 and $7 billion anticipated by Aggarwal.

Axis Capital, BofA Securities, BoB Capital Markets, Citigroup India Global Markets, Goldman Sachs (India) Securities, ICICI Securities, Kotak Mahindra Capital and SBI Capital Markets are the book-running lead managers.

The issue is open for subscription from Aug. 2–6. The listing will take place on Aug. 9.