Policybazaar and Paisabazaar parent company PB Fintech listed at a 17.35% premium on the stock exchanges on Monday, November 15. The stock listed at Rs 1,150 on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), a premium of 17.35% from the issue price of Rs 980. During its IPO, the online insurance and lending products player was subscribed 16.58 times when it opened for subscription between November 1 and 3.
The issue received bids for 57,23,84,100 shares against 3,45,12,186 shares on offer, according to National Stock Exchange (NSE) data. The category for Qualified Institutional Buyers (QIBs) was subscribed 24.89 times and that of non institutional investors 7.82 times and Retail Individual Investors (RIIs) 3.31 times. Price range for the offer was at Rs 940-980 per share.
The Rs 5,710-crore IPO had a fresh issue of Rs 3,750 crore worth of equity shares and an offer for sale of Rs 1,960 crore by existing shareholders. Of the entire issue, 75% was reserved for qualified institutional buyers, 15% for non-institutional investors and the remaining 10% for retail investors.
PB Fintech late last week had said it had garnered a little over Rs 2,569 crore from 155 anchor investors at Rs 980 per share. It said that the proceeds from the fresh issue will be used to enhance visibility and awareness of the company’s brands, to expand consumer base including its offline presence, for acquisitions and investments as well as to expand its presence outside the country.
Policybazaar is backed by investors such as Softbank, Temasek, Info Edge, Tiger Global Management and Tencent Holdings Ltd., and was founded in 2008 to tap the vast under-served Indian insurance market.
“We have had a huge retention of management. So I know that there are more than 50 people who've been with us for longer than 10 years. And you can imagine we were a very small company,” co-founder Yashish Dahiya said during the company’s listing ceremony. He added that they are lucky they got a problem to solve where they could educate them about the need for life insurance. “We have a long way to go,” he said. At the time of writing, PB Fintech’s market capitalisation was Rs 52,730.82 crore.