IPO-bound Groww issues bonus shares to Peak XV, Ribbit, other existing investors
Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. IPO-bound online investment platform Groww has issued compulsorily convertible preference shares as bonus to existing investors, including Peak XV and Ribbit, according to a Competition Commission of India’s notice. According to the notice issued on 3 March, the transaction will also result in collapse of the differential voting rights (DVR) held by Harsh Jain, Lalit Keshre, Neeraj Singh and Ishan Bansal, the founders of Groww.
This comes at a time when the company has enlisted investment banks for its upcoming $1-billion-plus initial public offering, according to news reports. The notice, however, did not mention the amount of bonus shares issued to each investor. Groww and existing investors Peak XV and Ribbit Capital did not respond to Mint’s queries at the time of publishing.
“The proposed transaction comprises of: (i) the proposed collapse of the differential voting rights (“DVRs") held by the founders of Groww (proposed DVR collapse"); and (ii) the bonus compulsorily convertible preference shares (bonus CCPS) proposed to be issued to all existing equity shareholders of Groww (proposed bonus CCPS issuance")," said the notice. DVR shares give holders lower or higher voting rights compared to ordinary shares. A collapse of differential voting rights means that the difference in voting rights between DVR and ordinary shares ceases to exist.
In a bonus share issuance, a company gives extra shares to existing shareholders at no additional cost. Siddharth Pai, founding partner at 3One4 Capital, told Mint that the company appears to be issuing bonus shares in an attempt to lower the issue price for their IPO later. "By capitalizing reserves, particularly the securities premium, the
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