IPO Update: Bansal’s Navi Tech Set to File for Rs 4,000 Crore IPO

According to sources, Flipkart co-founder Sachin Bansal’s Navi Technologies is expected to file draught papers for a Rs 4,000 crore IPO with market regulator Sebi in the coming days. In June, the company intends to go public. Personal loans, home loans, insurance, and microfinance loans are among the products offered by the digital fintech lender.

Bansal, who founded Flipkart in 2007 and left the company after the Walmart acquisition in 2018, owns 97 percent of Navi. The public offering will be entirely made up of new shares, with no offer-for-sale (OFS) component.

According to sources, this means Bansal will not sell shares to investors in the planned IPO. Ankit Agarwal, Navi’s cofounder and chief financial officer, and Paresh Sukhtankar, a former deputy managing director at HDFC Bank, also have stakes in the Bengaluru-based firm. Sukhtankar is also a Navi board observer.

The company has attempted to disrupt the industries in which it operates through a digital-first approach. In the MF space, for example, it has launched exchange traded funds (ETFs) with the lowest fee structure. In terms of personal loans, it provides loans of up to Rs 20 lakh in an instant, paperless process.

Navi entered the microfinance sector in 2019 after acquiring Chaitanya India Fin Credit for Rs 739 crore. Chaitanya had also applied to the Reserve Bank of India for a universal banking licence (RBI). Navi’s loan book is approximately Rs 3,500 crore.

Navi has added three new board members: Abhijit Bose, the head of WhatsApp India, Shripad Nadkarani, an early investor and board member at Paperboat, and Usha Narayanan, a former PwC partner. More independent directors will be added to the board ahead of the IPO, according to sources. Former Reserve Bank of India deputy governor Anand Sinha is already on the board as an independent director.

The funds will be used to fund the company’s aggressive growth plans, which include building a loan book worth Rs 20,000 crore over the next two years. According to additional sources, the company intends to raise up to Rs 15,000 crore in debt from the public markets over the next two years. Navi is said to have three million monthly active users and disbursed Rs 500 crore in personal loans in February.

In 2021, Navi MF acquired the assets of Essel MF. According to data from the Association of Mutual Funds in India (Amfi), Navi MF had assets of Rs 930 crore as of the December quarter.

In FY21, the company became profitable, earning a consolidated profit of Rs 71 crore on a total income of Rs 780 crore and expenditure of Rs 673 crore.

ICICI Securities, BofA and Axis Capital are the investment banks handling the share sale.