A source involved in the process said on Friday that the digital financial services company Paytm has received approval from the market regulator SEBI for its 16,600 crore initial public offering. The company is expected to go public at the end of this month, and plans to skip the pre-IPO stock sales round to quickly go public.

“SEBI has approved Paytm’s IPO,” said the source, who asked not to be named. The source added that the company’s shelving pre-IPO financing plan has nothing to do with any valuation differences.

The proposed initial public offering, if successful, will be the largest such offer. Coal of India’s Rs 15,200 crore initial public offering (IPO) in 2010 was the country’s largest public offering (IPO) to date. Advertising by Paytm is valued at 1.47-17.8 billion rupees. American valuation expert Aswath Damodaran is a professor of finance at New York University’s Stern School of Business. He valued the company’s unlisted shares at Rs 2,950 per share.

According to the draft IPO document, the company plans to raise Rs 8,300 crore through newly issued shares and another Rs 8,300 crore through tender offers. Paytm founder, managing director and CEO Vijay Shekhar Sharma and Alibaba Group will dilute some of their shares in the proposed sale. A source said that Antfin (Netherlands) Holding BV, an Alibaba group company, is expected to sell at least 5% of its shares to less than 25% in order to comply with regulatory requirements.

According to the documents, the investors who sold the shares included Antfin (Netherlands) Holding BV (holding 29.6% of the shares), Alibaba.com Singapore E-Commerce (7.2%) and Elevation Capital V FII Holdings (0.7%). In addition, Elevation Capital V (holding a 0.6% stake), SAIF III Mauritius Company (12.1%), SAIF Partners India IV (5.1%), SVF Panther (Cayman Islands) (1.3%) and BH International Holdings (2.8%) ) Will also sell equity. The company has proposed to use Rs 4,300 crore to develop and strengthen the Paytm ecosystem, including by acquiring consumers and merchants and providing them with more technology and financial services.

News Source: Gadgets360