Byju's board sanctions Aakash IPO; launch by mid-2024

BYJU'S Aakash to go public next year

The board of Byju's, the world's most-valued edtech startup, has approved the initial public offering (IPO) of Aakash Educational Services, its tutoring services division, postponing the previously planned 2023 IPO and aiming to take it public by mid-next year.

Byju's board granted its official sanction for this pivotal undertaking and the appointment of the merchant bankers for the IPO will be announced soon to ensure a planned and successful listing next year, the company said in a statement on June 5.

Moneycontrol previously reported that Byju's was gearing up for Aakash's $1 billion public listing, valuing the tutoring services unit at $3-4 billion.

The announcement comes at a time when Byju's faces a deadline to make a quarterly interest payment of $40 million on a loan it raised in November 2021.

Byju's has been in a dispute with its creditors since December 2022, when the company began talks with them to renegotiate the terms of its debt. Last week, the creditors ended these talks after taking Byju's US entity to court in Delaware, alleging that it had hidden about $500 million from them. Byju's has denied these allegations.

Byju's move to push the IPO of Aakash to next year comes at a time when the IPO market is picking up pace. According to a report by EY, India was positioned as number one in the world in terms of the number of IPOs in the first quarter of 2023.

Byju's said that Aakash is on track to clock Rs 4,000 crore in revenue in FY24 (2023-24), with an EBITDA (earnings before interest rate depreciation and amortisation) of Rs 900 crore. Byju's acquired Aakash in April 2021 in a $900 million deal.

Byju's had begun talks with investment bankers late last year and had also sought advice from Goldman Sachs and Citi Bank, according to people familiar with the matter. Both Goldman and Citi, in March, had sent reports that had details of Aakash and its potential valuation. Moneycontrol has seen a copy of it.

According to the reports, Aakash had a revenue of Rs 1,459 crore in FY22 (2022-23) and an EBITDA of Rs 227 crore. The company is yet to officially file its FY23 results. In FY23, Aakash was expecting a revenue of Rs 2,553 crore and an EBITDA of Rs 646 crore, according to the report.

Aakash, one of India's largest test preparation companies for engineering and medical entrance exams, has over 325 centres currently serving more than 400,000 students across the country. Earlier in March, Moneycontrol also reported that Byju's and Unacademy had explored a merger of Aakash Educational Services with the SoftBank-backed hybrid test preparation platform.