Kamalpreet

Ride-hailing giant Ola plans to go public in the first half of 2022, Chief Executive Officer Bhavish Aggarwal said, undeterred by the recent volatility and lackluster listing of some startups in the country.

Ola, backed by Japan's SoftBank Group, is also gearing up to create something of a "super app" with plans to broaden its services beyond mobility to include personal finance and micro insurance, Aggarwal told the Reuters Next conference.

"We are not a company that takes a short-term view on anything. Short-term, there might be volatilities in the market but that has never informed our decisions," said Aggarwal, who founded the company in 2010.

Indian companies have raised a staggering $9.7 billion through initial public offerings (IPOs) in the first nine months of 2021, according to accountants EY, but the dismal stock market debut of digital payments firm Paytm last month has caused worries among some bankers.

Ola, which has a majority share of India's ride-hailing market, where it competes with Uber, has plans to raise up to $1 billion through an IPO.

Aggarwal also plans to list Ola's separate electric vehicle business in the future, and is currently building it out starting with its electric scooters, for which it has received 1 million reservations, he said.

It plans to launch an electric car in 2023 and is looking at setting up local battery cell manufacturing.

Snapdeal targets $250M IPO in 2022: Report

Online retailer Snapdeal plans to file preliminary documents for an initial public offering of as much as $250 million in the next few weeks, according to Bloomberg News.

The e-commerce giant aims to go public in early 2022 after filing the draft red herring prospectus (DRHP). Snapdeal plans to raise at least $200 million at a $1.5 billion valuation, the report added.

Snapdeal had considered raising about $400 million at a valuation of up to $2.5 billion, Bloomberg News reported in September. It’s now hoping instead to replicate the strong showings of fellow online commerce firms like food delivery platform Zomato and beauty retailer Nykaa.

Snapdeal’s largest shareholders, which also include BlackRock Inc., Temasek Holdings and EBay are not selling shares.

Oyo dismisses allegations by FHRAI to SEBI over IPO

Hospitality startup Oyo has dismissed allegations made by the Federation of Hotel & Restaurant Associations of India (FHRAI) to SEBI, in which the association had called for the suspension of the company's proposed IPO citing alleged anti-competitive practices, fraud, and inadequate disclosures in DRHP.

Meanwhile, FHRAI has also filed a fresh civil appeal against the NCLAT's July order in which it had closed an insolvency case against an Oyo subsidiary.  FHRAI had approached SEBI in October asking the regulator to reject Oyo's DRHP and suspend the proposed IPO.

In a response to FHRAI's letter to SEBI, which Oyo sent to both FHRAI and SEBI, the company said that it is not involved in anti-competitive agreements as alleged. The company also said that is not in a dominant position and hence cannot abuse its position, citing a 2019 CCI order.

On allegations that Oyo has avoided contractual obligations with hotel partners by invoking force majeure, the company said that it was "constrained" to invoke force majeure provisions due to pandemic, and that no fraud was committed.

FHRAI had also alleged that the company had not made adequate disclosures of outstanding litigations against them in the DRHP, and that it would impact retail investors.

Oyo, however, has said that all outstanding litigation against the company have been disclosed in the DRHP.  Oyo had filed its DRHP with SEBI on October 1 for raising Rs 8430 crore through an IPO. It is still to receive the regulator's approval.

Cryptocurrency unicorn CoinDCX plans to go public: Report

India's first cryptocurrency unicorn CoinDCX plans to go public as soon as Indian regulations allow it, Bloomberg News reported.

Co-founder Neeraj Khandelwal said that CoinDCX IPO would boost confidence in India's 'digital asset industry'. "As soon as the government or the situation allows us, we will try for an IPO. An IPO gives legitimacy to the industry, just like the Coinbase IPO gave a lot of confidence in the crypto markets. Similarly, we want to instil a similar level of confidence with an IPO of CoinDCX," Khandelwal said, as quoted by Bloomberg.

The cryptocurrency exchange was valued at $1.1 billion in August when it raised $90 million in a funding round led by Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin’s fund B Capital. Its existing investors such as Coinbase Ventures, Polychain Capital, Block.one, Jump Capital and others also invested.

Khandelwal said that the company would decide on the IPO timeline depending on government regulations.

"The bill coming up at this juncture signals progress and acknowledgement from the government side of the growing investor base for crypto," Khandelwal added, as per the report.

The government plans to introduce the Cryptocurrency and Regulation of Official Digital Currency Bill 2021 in the ongoing Winter Session of Parliament. The Bill seeks to ban all but a few private cryptocurrencies to promote underlying technologies while allowing an official digital currency by RBI.

PB Fintech likely to bid for Start Health IPO under QIB category: Sources

PB FinTech which owns brands like policybazaar, paisabazaar and got listed just a couple of weeks back is set to bid for shares of Star Health and Allied Insurance Company under the Qualified institutional buyer (QIB) category, say sources to SENSEX TODAY .

The QIB category is 53 percent of the total issue size, which makes it about Rs 3840 crore. The QIB section has been subscribed about 28 percent so far. PB FinTech is in the business of aggregation of insurance products and is trying to invest in a company that sells insurance products.

The issue size of Star Health Insurance is large and it is the last day of subscription for the Rs 7250 crore IPO. Although the issue size is impressive, the subscription is not. Overall, the issue has been subscribed to just about 37 percent so far.

Paytm gets first ‘buy’ rating after lukewarm IPO: Report

Paytm, whose parent firm One97 Communications made a weak market debut in November, has got its first ‘buy’ rating from the brokerage Dolat Capital Market Private Limited, a report said on Thursday.

Dolat Capital Market is the third brokerage to initiate coverage on the digital payments platform after Macquarie Capital Securities and JM Financial Institutional Securities. JM Financial has a sell rating on the stock, while Macquarie has rated it as underperform.

According to the brokerage, Paytm’s transition to a “manufacturer” of financial services from an agent, cross-selling of services, and strong growth in the number of users will help the company.

Dolat analysts are of the view that Paytm’s “super app” has emerged from a pure “want” category to reach the “need” status. It positions the company as “one of the strongest digital brands to garner a significant share of opportunities that will evolve in the Indian internet ecosystem,” they said, according to the Bloomberg report.

The brokerage has set a target price of Rs 2,500, which is 16 percent higher than the company’s issue price.