GoKawiilPhonePe, India’s biggest digital payments platform, has put its IPO plans on hold, citing geopolitical tensions and a volatile stock market.
On Monday, the Bengaluru-based company said it had paused its IPO plans, but remains committed to going public once market conditions improve. The move comes less than two months after the fintech filed an updated IPO prospectus, targeting a listing on Indian stock exchanges later this year.
Escalating tensions in the Middle East have rattled global financial markets and pushed oil prices higher, prompting investors to retreat from stock markets. India’s benchmark equity indexes, the Nifty 50 and BSE Sensex, have each fallen about 9% over the past month, and hundreds of Indian stocks have recorded double-digit declines since the conflict started on February 28.
PhonePe, valued at about $12 billion in January 2023, was targeting a market capitalization of around $15 billion in its IPO, which could have raised as much as $1.5 billion.
More recently, however, investment bankers working with PhonePe on its IPO had suggested lowering its valuation expectations to about $9 billion, two people familiar with the company told TechCrunch.
PhonePe said any claims that the IPO is being paused due to valuation concerns are “baseless.”
“We paused the process only because of the current market conditions, which are unrelated to PhonePe,” a company spokesperson said in an emailed statement.
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