New Delhi: Ashneer Grover, former co-founder and managing director of BharatPe, has revealed that he made Rs 2.25 crore from the Zomato IPO within 8 minutes of its opening in July last year.
Grover has said in his memoir ‘Doglapan’ that he got an allotment of shares worth over Rs 3 crore as the IPO was oversubscribed by more than 30 times.
“Based on the grey-market premium, my RM (relationship manager) was expecting Zomato’s stock to list between Rs 85-90 against the issue price of Rs 76. However, I was sure it would do far better. When The stock opened at Rs 116 per share on the day of listing, so I forced him to sell all his shares.”
By the time the trade was executed, “I got a selling price of Rs 136 per share. With my landing cost being between Rs 82-85 after interest, 1 made over Rs 2.25 crore.” “Within eight minutes of the Zomato IPO opening, I had earned over Rs 2.25 crore.”
Grover said that he had become a bit greedy after Zomato’s IPO.
He said, ‘I went for the Car Trade IPO, but there I lost Rs 25 lakh.’
Grover, currently facing a court case filed by BharatPe, which he co-founded, said he was bullish on the Zomato IPO on many counts.
“Certainly, I knew about Deepinder (Goyal), and I am a huge believer in his ability to persevere and continue to build big. Basically, the ticket size of his orders had gone up with the pandemic , as people were ordering food from home. 3-4 members in a family as against single rolls in the office, thereby increasing Zomato’s absolute margin,” he wrote.
Also, restaurants were completely dependent on app orders during the lockdown, so there was no risk of the take-rate coming down.
Grover said, “On the other hand, job insecurity among delivery boys kept delivery costs under control. In fact, COVID magically solved food delivery economics in the country overnight, just like it did UPI had skyrocketed.”
Nykaa’s owner FSN E-Commerce Ventures Ltd. Grover was in a heated dispute with Kotak Mahindra Bank after their financing arrangement failed during its IPO.