One97 Communications Ltd., the company which operates brand Paytm, has raised ₹8,235 crore ($1.1 billion) from anchor investors, with the anchor round oversubscribed 10 times by 74 investors.
The anchor round saw participation from both domestic and foreign institutional investors, with 21 investors bidding greater than ₹100 crore, as a part of Paytm’s anchor round.
Top investors included Blackrock Inc., Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB), Aditya Birla Mutual Fund and GIC Pte. which made the highest bids.
Through various funds, Blackrock has invested ₹1,045 crore, CPPIB invested ₹938 crore, Aditya Birla Mutual Funds infused ₹555 crore and GIC Pte. invested ₹533 crore, as a part of Paytm’s anchor round.
The financial services company’s IPO also included participation from pension funds, superannuation funds as well as sovereign wealth funds including Government of Singapore, Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA), City of New York, Texas Teachers Retirement, among others.
Other investors also included Standard Life Aberdeen, Vanguard and Fidelity and UBS.
With this, Paytm has already secured 45% of its total ₹18,300 crore initial public offering (IPO) issue size.
Paytm increased its issue size to ₹18,300 crore from ₹16,600 crore earlier last month.
Mint had reported on November 2, citing sources, that Paytm was looking to raise $1.1 billion from anchor investors in what is touted to be India’s largest IPO, till date. BlackRock Inc., Canada Pension Plan Investment Board and GIC Pte were expected to be top bidders to Paytm’s anchor round, Mint reported earlier.
Of the total public issue, Paytm will undertake sale of fresh shares worth ₹8,300 crore, with the company’s existing shareholders selling another ₹10,000 crore worth of shares as part of the increased IPO size.
The price band has been kept in the range of ₹2,080- ₹2,150 by the company and will open for subscription during 8-10 November.
Led by founder and managing director Sharma, Paytm has expanded beyond digital payments into banking, credit cards, financial services and wealth management. It also supports India’s financial payments backbone, the Unified Payments Interface or UPI.
“We now start a journey of adding more partners to our business. In the private markets, companies have raised much larger rounds than us. We wish we had the opportunity of bringing a larger number of shareholders to Paytm. I wish one day Paytm has millions of shareholders,” said Sharma in a recent interaction with Mint on October 29.
“We are positive that we will attract long term shareholders and investors who will understand that the real value in Paytm is not about quarter-on-quarter profit delivery but on the long term change it brings,” Sharma added.
India’s market for first-time share sales is surging on debuts of tech firms, including Zomato Ltd that raised $1.3 billion in July this year.
As per the company’s red herring prospectus, Paytm’s total user base has increased to 337 million registered consumers and over 21.8 million registered merchants, for the quarter ending June 30.
