Firstcry, Ola Electric IPOs to build a club of super-rich

livemint.com:

BENGALURU , NEW DELHI : Top leaders of Ola Electric and Firstcry stand to make a windfall in their companies’ upcoming public listing, an analysis of their draft red herring prospectus (DRHP) by Mint showed. The top 10 executives of Bhavish Aggarwal-led e-scooter manufacturer Ola Electric are sitting on a potential cash value of ₹16,792 crore, of which Aggarwal’s stake alone is worth a little more than ₹16,000 crore. The rest of the executives were granted stock options over the years, through the company’s employee stock ownership plan (Esop) policy.

Meanwhile, the top 10 leaders of Brainbees, which owns and runs the omnichannel retail brand Firstcry, stand to make at least ₹2,467 crore from the initial public offering (IPO), according to the Mint analysis. These are conservative estimates based on the valuation of both companies in their last private funding rounds. The shares may be priced higher in IPOs.

Ola Electric last raised capital from Temasek Holdings at a valuation of $5.4 billion on 23 October. The company priced each share then at around ₹118, a person aware of the matter said on the condition of anonymity. On the other hand, some investors sold shares in Brainbees in December 2023 at a valuation of around $2.8 billion, at a price of ₹487.44 per share, according to the firm’s DRHP.

The two firms filed the DRHPs with the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) last month for their IPOs. Both companies are yet to secure the Sebi approval. Ola Electric’s top leaders include Bhavish Aggarwal (chief executive), Suvonil Chatterjee (chief technology and product officer of Ola group) and Arun G.R.