Infibeam’s much-awaited IPO was fully subscribed on the third day as the company successfully managed to raise the 450 crore that it had set out to do. Though interest in the IPO was muted, Infibeam created history by becoming the first Indian e-commerce company to go public.
BSE data showed that the portion reserved for qualified institutional buyers was subscribed 0.86 times and shares reserved for non-institutional investors were subscribed 2.23 times. Shares meant for retail investors filled in 1.31 times.
While e-commerce firms have raised tremendous amounts of funding from private markets and attained sky-rocketing valuations, public markets didn’t seem to be particularly gaga over the sector. “There was not much excitement for this IPO,” said Amar Ambani, head of research at IIFL Holdings Ltd, which had rated the issue as “avoid”. Infibeam is one of the few e-commerce companies that is profitable, having made a small profit over half of FY 2016.
The IPO had run into trouble prior to its launch with two of the four bankers involved pulled out citing concerns about timing and valuation. Infibeam had also run into controversy after reports had emerged that twitter users were being paid money to tweet favourably about the IPO.