India1 Payments joins IPO queue, submits DRHP to SEBI

India1 Payments Ltd has filed its draft red herring prospectus with the Securities and Exchange Board of India to launch its initial public offering (IPO), joining a long list of companies going public amid bullish investor sentiment.

The white-label ATM operator aims to raise Rs 150 crore by issuing new shares in the IPO. The public offering also includes an offer for sale of 1.03 crore shares by its promoters and investors, according to the DRHP.

While the Banktech Group will sell 1 lakh shares, Singapore’s BTI Payments will offload up to 25.08 lakh shares. The other selling shareholders are India Advantage Fund S3 I (49.94 lakh shares), India Advantage Fund S4 I 24.86 lakh shares, and Dynamic India Fund S4 US (2.16 lakh equity shares). These three funds are affiliates of ICICI Venture.

The company may also seek to raise Rs 30 crore via a pre-IPO placement of shares.

India1 Payments plans to use the net proceeds from the fresh issue to repay debt, finance tis capital expenditure requirements to setup ATMs in India, and for general corporate purposes.

India1 Payments’ business

India1 Payments, promoted by the Banktech Group, was incorporated in 2006. ICICI Venture invested in the company in 2013.

The Bengaluru-based company is a leading independent non-bank ATM operator in India. As of June 30, 2021, it operated a network of 8,520 ATMs across 14 states and union territories. Its brands these as “india1ATM”.

The company business is focused on semi-urban and rural areas where it has set up 7,619 ATMs, or nearly 90% of the total. It reached the milestone of operating 9,000 ATMs in August 2021, according to the DRHP.

In the six months ended June 30, 2021, the company processed an average of 24 million transactions per month on its ATM network.

India1 Payments’ financial performance

The company’s revenue from operations jumped to Rs 317.6 crore for the year through March 2021 from Rs 256 crore for 2019-20 and Rs 229.3 crore the year before.

The company eked out a profit before tax of Rs 2.16 crore for 2020-21, compared with a loss of Rs 8.6 crore and Rs 29.3 crore for the two previous years.

It also swung to a profit after tax of Rs 3.3 crore for 2020-21 from a loss of Rs 5.86 crore the year before, thanks to a tax writeback.

JM Financial, Edelweiss Financial Services and IIFL Securities are the merchant bankers managing the IPO.