Paytm founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma is no longer a billionaire.

With the share price of one of India’s most storied startups dropping more than 70% from its issue price of Rs 2,150 in the last four months, Vijaya Shekhar Sharma lost the tag of being a billionaire.

The precipitous drop exemplifies the turbulence that the Noida-based company has been experiencing. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) recently barred Paytm Payments Bank from accepting new customers.

According to Forbes, Sharma’s net worth has dropped to $999 million from a peak of $2.35 billion prior to the IPO listing. Paytm’s parent company, One97 Communications Ltd, will go public on November 18, 2021. Sharma has been losing around Rs 88 crore per day since that day.

The initial public offering raised Rs 18,300 crore for the company. On November 18, it was valued at Rs 1.39 trillion, placing it among India’s top 50 most valuable companies.

But it’s been a downhill slide ever since. The company’s market capitalization has dropped by around Rs 1 trillion, to Rs 4,000 crore. The company is now ranked 112th on the list of the most valuable companies.

The RBI’s prohibition on Paytm Payments Bank from adding new customers pushed the stock even lower. The bank has also been directed to hire an IT audit firm to conduct a thorough system audit of its information technology system.

The ban may not have a significant impact on the listed fintech’s business, but recent developments significantly reduce Paytm’s chances of being upgraded to a small finance bank licence.

The post Paytm’s stocks fall, Vijay Shekhar Sharma no longer a billionaire appeared first on The Tech Outlook.

According to persons familiar with the situation, Paytm, the Indian digital payments pioneer backed by Jack Ma’s Ant Group Co. is considering canceling its planned 20 billion rupee ($268 million) share sale ahead of its initial public offering due to valuation disparities.

According to several of the people who did not want to be identified because the material is confidential, the firm had been seeking a valuation of more than $20 billion based on early investor reaction, while advisers on the sale advocated a lower price. According to unicorn tracker CB Insights, the company was last valued at $16 billion.

Paytm, formerly known as One97 Communications Ltd., aims to capitalize on robust investor demand powered by easy liquidity, which has boosted India’s blockbuster IPOs this year. After growing competition from Walmart Inc.’s Flipkart and Amazon.com Inc. cutting its e-commerce and cloud sales by the same amount, the firm reported a 10% reduction in revenue for the year ending March 2021.

According to the sources, a final decision has yet to be taken, and Paytm may yet explore a pre-IPO sell at a lesser valuation. According to some sources, regulators are anticipated to approve the listing in the coming days.

The company’s representatives did not respond to an email requesting a comment.

Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Citigroup Inc., and ICICI Securities Ltd. are among the banks participating in the share offering. Paytm indicated in its Draft Red Herring Prospectus filed with the Securities and Exchange Board of India on July 16 that it may contemplate a pre-IPO placement of up to 20 billion rupees.

The post Paytm is considering cancelling its pre-IPO sale strategy due to valuation discrepancies appeared first on The Tech Outlook.