India's Paytm to file draft prospectus next week for $2.3 bln IPO, sources say

By A Robin Rajkumar - July 05, 2021

The headquarters for Paytm, India's leading digital payments firm, is pictured in Noida, India, August 29, 2018. REUTERS/Sankalp Phartiyal

NEW DELHI - One97 Communications Ltd, the parent of Indian payments firm Paytm, will file a draft prospectus as early as July 12 for a domestic initial public offering (IPO) that seeks to raise $2.3 billion, two sources close to the matter said on Monday.

The money will be raised via sale of new Paytm stock as well as a secondary offering of shares at an expected valuation of $24 billion to $25 billion with an option to raise the amount at a later stage if required, the sources said, declining to be named as the matter is not public.

Paytm's proposed $2.3 billion IPO will make it India's third-biggest public listing in dollar terms after state-run miner Coal India (COAL.NS) in 2010 and Reliance Power (RPOL.NS) in 2008.

The prospectus will be filed shortly after Paytm's extraordinary general meeting (EGM) of shareholders in Delhi on July 12, possibly on the same day, the sources added.

Paytm declined to comment.

Paytm, which counts China's Alibaba and Japan's SoftBank (9984.T) as backers, is seeking shareholder approval at the EGM to sell up to 120 billion rupees ($1.61 billion) in new stock and have an option to retain an over-subscription of up to 1%, Reuters reported previously.

There were $3.6 billion worth of IPOs in India in the first half of 2021, up from $1.1 billion at the same time last year, according to Refinitiv.

The level so far this year is the highest since 2008, the data showed. Sona BLW Precision Forgings raised $757.4 million in its June IPO which was the biggest listing in India this year.

Paytm has hired JPMorgan Chase (JPM.N), Morgan Stanley (MS.N), ICICI Securities (ICCI.NS), Goldman Sachs (GS.N), Axis Capital, Citi (C.N) and HDFC Bank (HDBK.NS) for the IPO, the sources said.

Citi and ICICI Securities declined to comment. Other banks did not respond to requests for comment.

($1 = 74.3375 Indian rupees)

Reporting by Sankalp Phartiyal in NEW DELHI and Scott Murdoch in HONG KONG; Additional reporting by Gaurav Dogra in BENGALURU; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman and Edmund Blair