BENGALURU: Pb Fintech, the parent firm of PolicyBazaar, on Monday filed a Draft Red Herring Prospectus (DRHP) with Securities Exchange Board of India (SEBI) to raise Rs 6,017 crore, at a valuation of $5-6 billion. The Initial Public Offering (IPO) will consist of a fresh issue of equity shares worth Rs 3,750 crore whereas Rs 2,267 crore will be raised via an Offer for Sale (OFS), through which the majority stakeholder, Softbank, is expected to reduce its stake by half.
Besides Softbank, which is looking to sell shares worth Rs 1,875 crore ($250 million), the other shareholders participating in the OFS include Policy Bazaar CEO Yashish Dahiya who will sell shares worth Rs 392.5 crore.PolicyBazaar is also looking to raise Rs 750 crore as a part of its pre-IPO placement in consultation with its book running lead managers (BRLM), the company said in its prospectus.
It added that if the company succeeds in raising the pre-IPO funding, it may reduce the fresh issue size of equity shares during its public listing. The eight-year-old startup said that the country’s insurance regulator, IRDAI has carried out inspection of its account books and records and sought responses from the company for compliance with the regulations, although, the matter, according to its filing, will not have a significant impact on the continuing operations.
The insurance aggregator recently acquired a license to enter into direct broking business as well as start physical centres for selling insurance, helping in customer assistance etc. The company said in the DRHP that the Covid-19 pandemic has particularly impacted its travel insurance vertical by negatively influencing its individual consumers as well as insurer partners.