One97 Communications, the mobile- internet company that owns the brand- Paytm marked its debut day on the Indian bourses on Thursday, listing at a 9% discount.
The stock opened its intraday at Rs 1,950 per piece on the National Stock Exchange, while the listing price on the Bombay Stock was Rs 1,955 apiece against the issue price of Rs 2,150/ piece.
By 3:15 pm, the share price dropped further by more than 27% and was trading at Rs 1564 apiece on BSE.
“Today is the day which many of us never expected to happen, which many of us never believed would happen, today is the day when a common surname feels like an outlier in this country,” said Paytm Founder and chief Vijay Shekhar Sharma during his address at the Bombay Stock Exchange.
He added, “Today is the day I believe, India races off to another milestone when not just the Government of India or a large corporate/conglomerate could proudly say that we could list… we could bring it to the stock exchange and we could build probably the largest IPO in this country.”
The thought-to-be blockbuster initial public offering (IPO) of Paytm, received a tepid response from investors, who subscribed to the shares 1.89 times last week.
Retail investors subscribed 1.66 times the reserved portion, and non-institutional investors had bid for only 24% of the reserved portion.
“It feels very warm inside to say that is Paytm imarat mein ek eet humne bhi lagayi hai (that we too have laid a brick in this edifice of Paytm),” said Kamal Yadav, managing director, Morgan Stanley India, one of the anchor investors.
Canadian Pension Fund CPPIB, Singaporean wealth fund GIC, BlackRock, Alkeon Capital and Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA) are other anchor investors who had put in around Rs 8,235 crore.
Paytm raised Rs 18,300 crore through this IPO that included a fresh issue of Rs 8,300 crore and an offer for sale (OFS) of Rs 10,000 crore by several stakeholders in the company including founder Sharma and the investors.
The proceeds generated from the public issue will be utilised to strengthen the Paytm ecosystem and expand via acquisitions and strategic partnerships.
Vijay Shekhar Sharma founded Paytm in 2010, and in over a decade, the firm has expanded beyond digital payments by adding the services of lending, gaming, wealth management, financial services and digital commerce into its portfolio.
In FY21, Paytm’s consolidated revenue reduced 11% to Rs 3,187 crore, but its losses were down by 42% to Rs 1,701 crore.