BENGALURU (Reuters) -SoftBank-backed FirstCry filed for an initial public offering on Thursday, making the baby products retailer the latest among a string of Indian firms to go public in recent months.
FirstCry’s parent Brainbees Solutions will sell fresh shares worth 18.16 billion rupees ($218 million), the draft IPO papers showed. The company was valued at $3 billion in April.
FirstCry’s biggest shareholder, SoftBank, holds a 25.5% stake in the firm.
Existing investors, including tech-to-tractors firm Mahindra And Mahindra and U.S. private equity fund TPG, will sell up to 54.4 million shares, the IPO papers showed.
The extent of shares SoftBank will sell was not immediately clear.
FirstCry, which saw its losses widen six-fold in fiscal 2022-2023 due to rising costs, said it would use funds from the IPO for expanding stores in India and Saudi Arabia, and to clear its leases for existing Indian stores.
The company has a network of 936 stores in India, but has not disclosed its store count in Saudi Arabia.
Companies are rushing to tap investor demand as India’s benchmark indices continue rallying to record highs on hopes Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling party will return to power after general elections due in early 2024.
This has fuelled a rise in IPOs filed in late 2023 in an otherwise dull year for fundraising, and trend could extend into 2024, bankers have said.
Companies have raised funds worth 447.93 billion rupees in main board IPOs so far this year, down 24% from a year ago, as per NSE data.
Morgan Stanley, BofA Securities, and Kotak Mahindra Capital are among the investment bankers for the share sale.
($1 = 83.2780 Indian rupees)
(Reporting by Nandan Mandayam in Bengaluru; Editing by Savio D’Souza and Mrigank Dhaniwala)
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