Vishal Mega Mart’s ₹8,000 crore IPO, 4th biggest share sale in 2024, planned for mid-December

The Indian fashion-focused hypermarket chain Vishal Mega Mart, owned by Kedaara Capital and Partners Group, is planning to launch its big-ticket initial public offering (IPO) of ₹8,000 crore by mid-December, Moneycontrol reported citing people privy to the matter.

This will be the biggest private equity-backed IPO and the fourth biggest IPO/FPO in India in 2024 after Hyundai Motor, Vodafone India and Swiggy.

A private equity-backed IPO is when a company offers its shares to the public for the first time as it was previously private. Moreover, a follow-on public offer (FPO) is when a publicly listed company issues additional shares to investors after its original IPO.

Vishal Mega Mart’s IPO was previously set for launch by the end of November but will now be coming by the middle of next month, the report said citing sources. The company is engaging with foreign institutional investors through roadshows in London and Singapore, among other places, to attract investor interest, it added.

Vishal Mega Mart IPO

The supermarket chain filed its Updated Draft Red Herring Prospectus (UDRHP) last month for its IPO, which is an entirely offer-for-sale of the company’s shares by its promoter Samayat Services LLP. The IPO has no fresh issue of equity shares. This means that the company will not receive any proceeds from the IPO and all funds will go to the selling shareholder(s).

Currently, Samyat Services LLP holds a 96.55% stake in the company and CEO Gunendar Kapur owns 2.5%, according to the draft red herring prospectus.

The updated DRHP was made public after the offer was approved by SEBI on September 25. The company filed its document with SEBI through a confidential pre-filing route, in which the filing process is kept private. Through this process, IPO details, business models and financials are kept private before the company gets SEBI approval.

The book-running lead managers for the IPO, advising the company, are Kotak Mahindra Capital, ICICI Securities, Jefferies, JP Morgan and Morgan Stanley.

The company operates 626 stores across India as of June 30, 2024, and has online platforms for retail commerce including a mobile application and a website. It offers products in three categories—apparel, general merchandise and fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG).

It reported a revenue of ₹8,911.9 crore in the fiscal year ending March 2024 as compared to ₹7,586 in the previous fiscal. The company posted a net profit of ₹461.93 crore for FY24, increasing from ₹321.27 in FY23.