Amid the excitement surrounding Life Insurance Corporation of India’s (LIC’s) planned initial public offering (IPO), three other firms have also managed to get authorisation to raise cash through initial share sales from market regulator SEBI. These are Wellness Forever Medicare, backed by Adar Poonawalla; API Holdings, the parent company of pharmaceutical platform PharmEasy; and CMR Green Technologies are among these companies.
According to the information on SEBI’s website, the market regulator sent observation letters to the three firms last week on February 16-17, 2022. These firms submitted preliminary IPO filings with SEBI between September and November of last year. The SEBI’s observation denotes the approval to undertake the IPOs.
PharmEasy
API Holdings intends to raise Rs 6,250 crores through its IPO, according to its draft red herring prospectus (DRHP) submitted with the regulator.
The offer will be the principal issue of equity shares and will not include an offer for sale (OFS). This effectively indicates that API Holdings’ current owners will not sell their shares.
PharmEasy, one of the country’s major e-pharmacies, intends to use the net proceeds to retire or settle the existing debt totalling Rs 1,929 crores, support organic growth initiatives totalling Rs 1,259 crores, seek inorganic expansion through acquisitions and other strategic initiatives worth Rs 1,500 crores, and for general corporate purposes.
API Holdings submitted its initial offer documents with the regulator in November, during a flurry of IPOs and listings of new-age internet businesses that include Zomato, Nykaa, PolicyBazaar, and Paytm.
Wellness Forever Medicare
Wellness Forever Medicare is an omnichannel retail pharmacy with locations in Maharashtra, Goa, and Karnataka. According to news agency PTI, it intends to generate Rs 1,500-1,600 crores through its IPO.
It submitted its draft documents to SEBI on October 1 of last year. According to its DRHP, the IPO comprises a fresh issue of equity shares worth Rs 400 crores and an OFS of up to 16,044,709 equity shares.
As part of the OFS, owner Ashraf Mohammed Biran will sell up to 7,20,000 equity shares, founder and director Gulshan Haresh Bakhtiani would sell up to 720,000 equity shares, co-founder and director Mohan Ganpat Chavan will sell up to 120,000 equity shares, and other existing shareholders will sell up to 14,484,709 equity shares.
The drugstore company recently announced the appointment of three new independent directors to its board of directors – Avani Davda, Ranjit Shahani, and Kewal Handa – who have extensive expertise in banking, healthcare, and retail.
Read more: RIL To Take on Nykaa, Myntra With New Omnichannel Beauty Platform
CMR Green Tech
According to its DRHP, CMR Green Tech is a metal recycling firm, and their offer includes a fresh issue of Rs 300 crore worth of shares, and an OFS of 33,414,138 equity shares by promoters and investors.
Promoters Gauri Shankar Agarwala will sell 34.33 lakh equity shares, Kalawati Agarwal will sell up to 33.45 lakh equity shares, and Mohan Agarwal and Pratibha Agarwal will sell up to 30.09 lakh equity shares each. Investor Global Scrap Processors will sell up to 1.99 crore equity shares.
The proceeds of the new issuance will be used to pay down their debt and for other company purposes.
The SEBI permission comes at a time when market volatility is high owing to geopolitical worries concerning Ukraine and Russia. Investors have recently been harsh on the stocks of new age online businesses that went public last year.
