Go Digit clears another hurdle on road to IPO

livemint.com:

₹1,250 crore initial pubic offering (IPO). The company is now waiting for approval from the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) for the initial public offering (IPO), the people cited above said on condition of anonymity, adding that they expect approval soon enough. In November, Digit General Insurance, which runs Go Digit, filed an addendum to its IPO documents, stating that Irdai had issued it a show-cause notice related to its “non-disclosure of change in the conversion ratio of the compulsorily convertible preference shares, issued to Fairfax." The company is likely to go public in the first half of 2024, one of the two people cited above said.

This is Go Digit’s second attempt at a IPO. In January 2023, Sebi had returned its offer document, making observations on the lock-in period for promoters and shareholders, and its employee stock options. Go Digit rectified these issues and refiled the offer document on 6 April.

Queries emailed to the spokespersons of Fairfax, Go Digit and Irdai remained unanswered. Founded by Kamesh Goyal in 2016, Go Digit General Insurance Ltd offers motor, health, travel and property insurance among other non-life products. Last year, it received Irdai’s permission to start Go Digit Life Insurance Ltd, which would make it the 25th life insurance company in India.

Go Digit had raised capital at a valuation of $3.5 billion in 2021; however, this came under scrutiny last week when short seller Muddy Waters Research claimed that Fairfax had overstated its book value by $4.5 billion, including its investments in Go Digit and Quess Corp. It said Go Digit was valued at only $1.5 billion, less than the $3.5 billion valuation. Fairfax refuted all claims made by Muddy Waters in statements