Tata Sons’ Chairman Emeritus, Ratan Tata, celebrating his 86th birthday today, intends to sell his holding of 77,900 shares in the kidswear startup, FirstCry, during its forthcoming IPO in 2024.
Back in 2016, Tata secured a 0.02% stake in Brainbees Solution, the parent company operating FirstCry, with an investment of Rs 66 lakh.
As per FirstCry’s draft red herring prospectus (DRHP) submitted to SEBI, Tata’s average cost per share stands at Rs 84.72, resulting in his total investment summing up to approximately Rs 66 lakh in the company.
Ratan Tata, known for his long tenure leading the Tata Group, has been an active angel investor in various startups, including Lenskart, Paytm, Ola Electric Mobility, and Upstox.
While the specifics of the FirstCry IPO are yet undisclosed, it includes a fresh issue of shares amounting to Rs 1,816 crore. Additionally, existing investors like SoftBank, Mahindra & Mahindra (M&M), and TPG plan to offload up to 54.4 million shares through the offer for sale (OFS) segment.
Notably, SoftBank’s SVG Frog intends to sell 2.03 crore shares, while M&M plans to divest up to 28.06 lakh shares in the IPO. Other selling stakeholders comprise PI Opportunities Fund, TPG, NewQuest Asia, Apricot Investments, Valiant Mauritius Partners, TIMF Holdings, Think India Opportunities Master Fund, and Schroders Capital Private Equity Asia.
SoftBank retains the largest stake in FirstCry, holding 25.5%, followed by M&M with a 10.98% stake in the startup.
FirstCry’s Co-Founder and CEO, Supam Maheshwari, aims to sell 18.24 lakh shares out of a total of 2.89 crore shares in possession before the IPO. Ahead of the public offering, Maheshwari owned a 5.95% stake in the company.
The startup, despite witnessing a six-fold increase in losses in fiscal 2022-2023 due to escalating costs, plans to utilize IPO proceeds to expand its retail presence in India and Saudi Arabia, and to settle lease liabilities for existing Indian stores.
As of June 30, 2023, Brainbees operated a total of 936 modern stores, including 321 company-owned and operated stores. Over the next three fiscal years, the company aims to establish 336 new BabyHug brand stores spanning about 0.59 million square feet and add 147 FirstCry brand stores encompassing roughly 0.51 million square feet.
