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First India Unicorn IPO 35 Times Subscribed by Anchor Funds

Zomato's public share sale will open on Wednesday and close Friday, targeting to raise $1.3 billion.

First India Unicorn IPO 35 Times Subscribed by Anchor Funds
Two Zomato food delivery couriers check their smartphones for customer order alerts on a roadside in Mumbai. (Photographer: Dhiraj Singh/Bloomberg)

Zomato Ltd., the Indian food delivery startup backed by Jack Ma’s Ant Group Co., got about 35 times more bids from anchor investors than it intended to sell in its blockbuster initial public offering, according to people with knowledge of the matter.

The Gurgaon-based firm received bids worth 1.5 trillion rupees ($20 billion) from large funds compared with the 42 billion rupees offered, the people said, asking not to be identified as the information is private. The subscription marks one of the most popular Indian IPOs among institutional investors in recent years as Zomato starts taking public orders for the $1.3 billion share sale on Wednesday.

Zomato allocated about 552 million shares to 186 anchor investors including funds managed by BlackRock Inc. and Fidelity International Ltd. as well as New World Fund and Tiger Global, according to a Tuesday filing, which didn’t provide any subscription figures. The shares were sold at 76 rupees each to the anchor investors, the top of a marketed range with a minimum price of 72 rupees. Indian funds got about a third of the anchor allotment.

The interest follows a blistering rally in Indian stocks this year, and signals confidence in the market debut of the country’s first real consumer internet offering. Zomato recently raised its IPO target by 14% as demand grew in a fast-growing Indian food-services market that Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. estimates will balloon to $97 billion by 2025.

Zomato is selling about 90 billion rupees worth of new shares in the IPO, while its shareholder Info Edge (India) Ltd. is offering as much as 3.75 billion rupees worth of stocks, according to terms of the deal obtained by Bloomberg News.

Shares of Info Edge rose 0.6% as of 1:40 p.m. in Mumbai on Wednesday, compared with a 0.2% gain in the benchmark index.

At about $1.3 billion, the startup’s IPO is set to be India’s biggest since SBI Cards & Payment Services Ltd.’s $1.4 billion share sale in March 2020, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. That said, Zomato’s record could soon be overtaken by digital payments services provider Paytm, which is preparing for its more than $2 billion IPO.

Kotak Mahindra Capital, Morgan Stanley India, Credit Suisse Group AG, BofA Securities and Citigroup Inc. are managing Zomato’s IPO.

©2021 Bloomberg L.P.