Pine Labs gets Singapore court's nod to shift base to India

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Fintech firm Pine Labs has received the approval from a Singapore court to shift its operations to India.

In a May 9 order, the Singapore court approved the fintech's firm request to merge its Singapore entity, Pine Labs Limited (PLS), with the Indian Pine Labs Private Limited (PLI) and transfer all its assets and properties.

This comes a week after Tiger Global-backed Groww announced to have completed the process of moving the domicile of its holding company from US to India, joining the growing list of top fintech firms moving their bases back to home country amid favourable economic policies and expanding domestic market.

Last year, fintech decacorn PhonePe shifted its domicile from Singapore to India while Razorpay is also in process to move its parent entity from the US to India.

Pine Labs declined to comment on the development.

According to PLS’s regulatory filing in Singapore sourced by TheKredible, the transfer is expected to help Pine Labs achieve business synergies and economies of scale.

"The amalgamation is expected to achieve more cost saving and and more focused operational efforts, rationalisation and standardisation of business processes by the way of consolidation of the group," it said.

The company is now awaiting for a go ahead from National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT). The plea, which was listed first on March 1, 2024, has been adjourned till May 31.

The Peak XV Partners-backed merchant commerce and payments platform offer online and offline gateway (point of sales terminals) services to e-commerce and retail merchants besides gifting and credit.

The company managed to bring down its losses by 12.36 percent to Rs 227 crore in FY23 from the previous year while total revenue stood at Rs 1588 crore.

In 2022, Pine Labs had confidentially filed for a US initial public offering of its Singapore-based entity to raise about $500 million.

However, it subsequently deferred the plans, citing weak market sentiments.

The Indian government has been encouraging local startups to redomicile to India -the process also know as 'reverse flip'-and set up their base in the IFSC GIFT City l and tap into the international market opportunities.

(This is a developing story, please check back for updates)