Kamal Ghorui
MUMBAI: Four early investors in Billionbrains Garage Ventures that operates the leading fintech platform Groww, are together selling 4.3% stake worth about $500 million (close to Rs 4,800 crore) in the recently-listed company. Peak XV, Sequoia, Y Combinator and Ribbit, the selling shareholders, have mandated Kotak Securities and JP Morgan India to sell the shares through block deals on Tuesday.The four selling shareholders, all private equity majors, are together selling a little over 26.8 crore shares of Groww, translating to 4.3% of the fintech major’s equity capital, the term sheet for the deal showed.The floor price for the offer, at Rs 177 per share, is at 8.5% discount to Groww’s closing price of Rs 193.5 on NSE on Monday. The base offer size is for 4.3% of the total equity capital of Groww, valued at Rs 4,750 crore at the floor price. There is an upsize option for further sale through this deal, the term sheet said.According to a report by Nuvama Alternative & Quantitative Research, for those shareholders who held shares in the company before it went public, lock-in of shares is set to end on May 12. The total number of Groww shares from which lock-in would be lifted is 418.2 crore. At current prices, that is worth nearly Rs 81,000 crore.According to Sebi rules, aimed at limiting any pressure on the stock price from over-supply of shares of a recently listed company, there’s lock-in for shareholders who had invested in the company before the IPO.Among the other prominent, recently-listed companies in which lock-in for pre-IPO shareholders is ending soon are Meesho (308.3 crore shares on June 10), Pine Labs (92.4 crore shares on May 13) and Physicwallah (25.9 crore shares on May 18).
