Zomato does intend to go for an initial public offering and is preparing for it, according to Chintan Thakkar, chief financial officer at Info Edge (India) Ltd., an early investor in the food delivery company. Zomato is an independent company with an independent board; its board will take a final decision and only then, the IPO will proceed. At this stage, Info Edge cannot give a timeline or any other details on the public listing, Thakkar said on the an earnings call held on Monday.
In September 2020, Zomato CEO Deepinder Goyal had announced the intention to take the company public in 2021. Bankers and legal advisors have reportedly been hired. In an earnings call for the previous quarter in November, Info Edge CFO Chintan Thakkar had said the same thing he said on Monday’s earnings call: that Zomato was indeed preparing for an IPO, but defining timelines was premature. “There is definitely an intention behind it, but when it will happen is a premature question to answer,” he had said. The focus then was to assess whether a company is ready, “so that when you finally decide that you want to go for it, we will go for it”.
On the same call, Sanjeev Bikhchandani, vice-chairman at Info Edge, had said that “we are not in any hurry to sell anything. We are not running out of funds. We see substantial value creation going forward. Having said that – never say never, but there is no pressure for us to sell”.
Between October to December, Zomato secured an investment of USD 448 million in two tranches; USD 253 million in December and USD 195 million in November. InfoEdge India’s holding in Zomato now stands at 19.5%, representing 7.59% direct holding and 8.26% held indirectly through subsidiary companies in partnership with Temasek.
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