Paytm IPO, Biggest India Sale, Sees Sluggish Subscription
NDTV
About 48% of the issue was bought through 5 p.m. in Mumbai, according to data on the stock exchange's website.
Subscription to Paytm's $2.5 billion initial share offering moved at a sluggish pace on the second day of the sale, as analysts raised concerns about the Indian digital payments provider's profitability.
About 48% of the issue was bought through 5 p.m. in Mumbai, according to data on the stock exchange's website. While the portion set aside for retail investors was fully subscribed, those for institutional buyers and non-institutional investors such as wealthy individuals were only partly sold.
Slow uptake for the public subscription that runs through Nov. 10 contrasts with strong demand from anchor investors, whose allocation was oversubscribed more than 10 times last week. A key focus is when Ant Group-backed Paytm will turn profitable enough to justify a share price of as much as 2,150 rupees that the company is seeking.
"These are very high risk bets," Rakhi Prasad, an investment manager at Alder Capital in Mumbai, said in an interview to Bloomberg TV Tuesday. The company has the strength of being the largest digital payments network from a merchant's perspective but has "a long runway" to capitalize on that and generate some profits, she added.
