Zomato makes strong debut on bourses

Online food delivery major Zomato made a strong debut on the stock exchanges on Friday with the shares listing at Rs 115 on BSE – a premium of more than 51% when compared to the issue price of Rs 76.
 
At 10:30 am, the stock was trading at Rs 130.60, after touching a high of Rs 138. The market capitalisation of the newly-listed company has already crossed the Rs 1 lakh crore mark at Rs 1,02,458 crore. In terms of current valuations, the company has already pipped market veterans like BPCL, IOC, M&M and Tata Motors among others.  
 
On the National Stock Exchange (NSE), the shares listed at Rs116, before touching a high of Rs 138.90. As many as 47.7 crore equity shares of the company have already been traded within the first hour of listing.

Interestingly, shares of Zomato registered strong gains even as the benchmark indices remained largely subdued during the morning session. At 10:30 am, the benchmark Sensex was trading at 52.906, up 69 points while the broader Nifty gained 22 points at 15,846.  

Also read: Zomato IPO Live Blog: Firm sees strong market debut

The IPO of Zomato, which closed for subscription on July 16, saw a strong response from all categories of investors with the issues getting subscribed 38.25 times. While the institutional portion was subscribed nearly 52 times, the portions reserved for high net worth individuals and retail were subscribed 32.96 times and 7.45 times, respectively.

The interest level for the IPO was huge in the market though analysts were quite divided on their views on the company. While the company boasted of a huge valuation, many in the market felt that since the online food delivery entity is loss-making, investors would be better staying away from the stock.  

Broadly, the view was that one could subscribe to the public issue for either listing gains or long-term returns.  

Also read: 'Proud of past, ready for future': Deepinder Goyal ahead of Zomato listing

The current calendar year has already been quite vibrant in terms of public issues with well-known entities from the public and private sector entering the markets. The notable firms that got listed on the bourses this year include Barbeque Nation Hospitality, Suryoday Small Finance Bank, Nazara Technologies, Kalyan Jewellers, RailTel Corporation of India and Indian Railway Finance Corporation, among others.  

Till June this year, a total of 22 IPOs were launched that collectively raised nearly Rs27,500 crore, according to data from Prime Database, a primary market data tracker. Incidentally, the cumulative mobilisation in the first six months of 2021 has already surpassed the entire previous year’s fundraising of Rs26.612 crore through 15 public issues.

Also read: Zomato share makes strong market debut, lists at 52% premium to issue price