Career Launcher Parent Eyes Rs 703-Crore Valuation In IPO
CL Educate plans to retire long-term debt, fund acquisitions from IPO proceeds.
The parent of Career Launcher coaching classes set a price band of Rs 500-502 per share for its initial public offering (IPO) that opens on March 20 as it looks to raise up to Rs 239 crore to repay long-term debt and fund acquisitions.
The IPO will value CL Educate Ltd., which runs 165 test-preparation and training centres across India, at nearly Rs 703 crore, according to BloombergQuint’s calculations.
“We would be open for certain inorganic opportunities and some capital might be needed there. We would look at young, disruptive, technology-driven companies,” said Satya Narayanan R, chairman and executive director of CL Educate.
The company will offer 21,80,119 fresh equity shares, and promoters and shareholders including private equity firm Gaja Capital will offload another 25,79,881, the company said in a statement.
The share sale constitutes 33.61 percent of the post offer paid-up equity share capital of the company. The IPO closes on March 22.
Narayanan and another co-founder Gautam Puri equally own nearly 43 percent in CL Educate.
The cash raised from the offer will also be used to fund working capital requirements and general corporate purposes, the statement said.
The company’s debt as on September 30 last year stood at Rs 65.3 crore, and CL Educate plans to retire its long-term borrowings of Rs 23.58 crore after the IPO.
Kotak Mahindra Capital Co Ltd. is the lead book-running manager for the issue.
