OLA is all set to file IPO, plans to get listed by October
According to three sources with direct information, Indian
e-scooter
manufacturer Ola Electric intends to submit the necessary paperwork for its potential $700 million initial public offering (IPO) by the end of October.Ola Electric
, supported by investors such as Temasek in Singapore and SoftBank in Japan, was recently valued at $5.4 billion.An Ola Electric executive asked external advisers on the IPO, including the investment banking units of India's Kotak and ICICI, as well as foreign banks like Bank of America and Goldman Sachs, to give "utmost priority" to meet a five-week deadline in an email to its bankers and lawyers on Sunday, Bloomberg reported.
While the other three banks declined to comment, Ola Electric and Kotak did not reply to a request for comment. Due to the internal nature of the communication, the report did not mention the name of the sources. The internal codename for Ola's IPO endeavour is "Project Himalaya," and the message included a directive to bankers and solicitors not to schedule any "long leaves to ensure availability," according to the sources.
Senior bankers and attorneys at Indian firms planning IPOs are often not told not to take vacations, they claimed. The Indian markets regulator will assess the IPO documents when they are submitted and may potentially make inquiries, indicating that any potential listing is still some months away.
According to one of the sources, Ola Electric plans to do its roadshows for its IPO in early January or February. Bhavish Aggarwal created the business, which now commands a 30% market share in
India's e-scooter sector
and is growing in popularity as the nation encourages the usage of electric vehicles and scooters.In an interview this year, he said that his accessible e-scooters, which start at $1,080, are for the general public and that "Tesla is for the West, Ola is for the rest." But Ola Electric continues to lose money. According to Reuters, it had an operational loss of $136 million on $335 million in revenue during the fiscal year that ended in March 2023.