Le Travenues Technology Ltd, the company behind traveltech platform ixigo, received a strong response to its initial public offering with investors bidding for more than 98 times the shares on sale.
The offering of about 43.77 million shares, excluding the anchor investors’ portion, received bids for more than 4.3 billion shares, stock-exchange data showed at the end of bidding on the third and final day Wednesday. This translates to bids worth around Rs 40,028 crore ($4.8 billion).
Institutional investors bid for 106.73 times the shares reserved for them. The quota set aside for non-institutional investors was covered 110.53 times while retail investors’ portion was subscribed almost 55 times.
Ahead of the IPO, which began Monday, ixigo allotted 35.81 million shares to a bunch of anchor investors including three existing backers—Singapore sovereign wealth fund GIC, private investment firms Bay Capital and Malabar Investments. GIC bought shares worth Rs 18.76 crore while Bay Capital and Malabar invested about Rs 5 crore each. Other anchor investors included SBI Mutual Fund, Whiteoak Mutual Fund, HDFC Mutual Fund, Morgan Stanley and Bajaj Allianz Life Insurance Company.
Ixigo refiled its draft IPO documents with the Securities and Exchange Board of India in February this year and received regulatory approval last month.The IPO comprised a fresh issue of shares worth Rs 120 crore and an offer for sale by existing shareholders worth Rs 620 crore.
The company set the IPO price band at Rs 88-93 per share. At the upper end of the band, the company will command a valuation of Rs 3,603 crore ($432 million). In comparison, its Mumbai-listed peers Yatra Online and EaseMyTrip command a valuation of around Rs 2,000 crore and Rs 7,500 crore, respectively.
These shareholders include Elevation Capital and Peak XV Partners, two of the most active venture capital investors in Indian startups, as well as Madison India Capital. Elevation is selling 19.4 million shares, Peak XV plans to sell 13.02 million and Madison wants to divest about 4.83 million shares. Ixigo founders Aloke Bajpai and Rajnish Kumar will sell 11.95 million shares each. Strategic backer Micromax is also offloading a quarter of its stake.
Elevation, previously known as SAIF Partners, and Peak XV, earlier known as Sequoia Capital India and Southeast Asia, are reaping multibagger returns by partially monetizing their investments. Both VC firms also sold part of their stake ahead of the IPO to investors including Bay Capital and Steadview Capital.
Incorporated in June 2006, Ixigo allows its users to book train, flight and bus tickets, as well as hotels and cabs. It recorded revenue of Rs 501 crore and a net profit of Rs 23.4 crore for the year ended March 2023. For the nine months through December 2023, its revenue from operations was Rs 491 crore and net profit was Rs 65.7 crore.
