Yatra founder hopeful of getting co listed on Nasdaq by October

Online travel agency yatra.com expands its wings by signing an agreement with the Nasdaq-listed Terrapin 3 Acquisition Corporation. The merger in total has costed yatra.com around USD 218 million.Speaking to CNBC-TV18, founder of the travel portal Dhruv Shringi said it is an innovative way of going public. We are looking at a combination of Yatra and Terrapain. Yatra's parent company will become the listed company on Nasdaq. Hopefully in October, Yatra will start to list, he said.Below is the verbatim transcript of Dhruv Shringi’s interview to Ronojoy Banerjee on CNBC-TV18.Q: Congratulations on the announcement; take us through it. So it is Terrapin and you have now decided to merge.A: This is an innovative way of going public. Terrapin is an already existing entity which is listed on the NASDAQ. What we are looking at is a combination between Terrapin and Yatra where Terrapin will merge with Yatra’s parent company in Cayman Islands through a filing of a proxy statement and other documents with the Acc, Yatra’s parent company will become the listed entity on NASDAQ and trade under the ticker YTRA. Q: When do we see Yatra getting listed on NASDAQ? A: We expect this to be about a 90 day kind of process. So, hopefully sometime in October you should see Yatra starting to list. Q: How important is that in terms of a milestone for Yatra?A: We will complete 10 years on August 1 since we went live. For us it is a very critical milestone. In any company’s life cycle, you go through different stages and I think we are now at that stage where this is a validation of the business that we have built and it is a validation at the hands of the public market which is the ultimate validation. So, it is a very important milestone for us. It is not the end of the journey; it is actually the start of a beautiful another new journey for us. Q: What does Yatra now gain with this?A: Yatra ends up with a very well capitalised balance sheet. As a part of this transaction, we will end up in a scenario where we will have at least a USD 100 million going up to maybe about a USD 150 million on to our balance sheet and that strengthened balance sheet then gives us the opportunity to continue to grow the business. We have seen very strong tailwinds behind the aviation sector, domestic air travel and international air travel both continue to grow at a very rapid click. This will allow us to go deeper into the India market. So, tier II, tier III towns, look at them. We also are building a technology platform which can be used across all segments so be it consumers, direct consumers, be it corporate travelers, be it B2B agents. So, we want to strengthen that platform and make sure it can be used across as many channels as possible.For full interview, watch accompanying video