FirstCry likely to list on stock exchanges on August 13

Supam Maheshwari, Firstcry MD and CEO

BrainBees Solutions Ltd, the parent company of FirstCry, is likely to list on the stock exchanges on August 13, people aware of the developments told Moneycontrol. The e-commerce giant is also slated to launch the anchor book for its initial public offering (IPO) on August 5, with the issue likely to open for public subscription between August 6 and August 8, the people cited above added.

The IPO will value FirstCry at a touch below Rs 25,000 crore ($3 billion), one of the people cited above said. The mother and baby care retailer will be the second new-age company to go public from SoftBank’s stable in August, after Ola Electric which is likely to make its Dalal Street debut on August 9.

That is slightly higher than its previous secondaries round. FirstCry commanded a valuation of Rs 23,000 crore (around $2.8 billion) during its most recent round. The company was earlier expected to price its IPO at a valuation of $3.5-3.75 billion, but the valuation has lowered since then.

FirstCry parent BrainBees had first filed draft IPO papers with India's Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) last December for an IPO that would have been one of the country's biggest this year. While it filed to raise about $215 million via fresh shares, it plans to raise $300 million more via sale of existing shares, as reported earlier.

Supam Maheshwari, Firstcry MD and CEO did not respond to Moneycontrol's messages.

FirstCry, however, withdrew its draft papers after the capital markets regulator, SEBI, sought more clarity in key performance indicators (KPIs). SEBI had initially sought 25 KPIs of which FirstCry provided only 5-6 in its first set of filings, sources told Moneycontrol earlier.

When the company refiled its IPO papers, it even provided more clarity on its financials. The Pune-based company said that it generated a revenue of Rs 4,814 crore in the nine months leading up to December 31, 2023. During the same period, it incurred a loss of Rs 278 crore, the updated DRHP had shown then.

While the same period for a year-on-year (YoY) comparison is not available, the Pune-based company had generated an operating revenue of Rs 5,633 crore in FY23 and incurred a loss of Rs 486 crore in the year.

Similarly, in FY22, FirstCry had reported an operating revenue of Rs 2,401 crore and a loss of Rs 79 crore in the year.  A bulk of the company's sales, more than 75 percent, came from online channels.