Paytm IPO made nearly 350 employees millionnaires

With One97 Communications, the parent company of fintech startup Paytm’s $2.5 billion IPO, nearly 350 of its former and current employees will reportedly become millionaires with a net worth of Rs 1 crore each.

According to a Reuters report, some of these employees joined Paytm seven or 10 years back when it had just 1,000 employees. At present, Paytm has more than 10,000 employees.

Digital payments and financial services firm Paytm has fixed an offer price of Rs 2,150 apiece for its initial share-sale. The shares of Paytm are expected to list on bourses on November 18, according to the final prospectus filed by the company with the Registrar of Companies on Friday.

Paytm had priced its shares in a price band of Rs 2,080-2,150 per share, valuing the company at Rs 1.39 lakh crore at the upper end of the price band.

With the Rs 18,300-crore share sale, Paytm has become the largest fintech IPO in the Asia-Pacific region.

It is also the second largest fintech IPO of 2021 globally, after Spain-based Allfunds IPO. Overall, Paytm will be the fourth largest fintech stock debut, globally.

The Paytm IPO closed with 1.89 times subscription.

Paytm plans to use the proceeds of the IPO for various activities like adding consumers in terms of retail and merchants besides making investments into new business ventures.

Paytm had 333 million consumers and 21.1 million merchants as of March 31, 2021.

Payments transaction volume market share and wallet payments transaction market share stand at 40 percent and 65 to 70 percent, respectively.  Its merchant base grew double-digit from 11.2 million in March 2019 to 21.1 million in March 2021.  

Paytm Payments Bank holds a market share of 17.1 percent. As of March 31, the total outstanding fixed deposits were Rs 1750 crore.

Paytm will become the fourth leading Indian startup to hit the public markets after Zomato, Nykaa, and Freshworks. The Indian startup ecosystem, which has witnessed one of the strongest capital inflow, is also now moving forward towards the public listing route.

(With inputs from PTI)