FILE PHOTO: A worker uses a Pine Labs machine for transaction at a fuel station in Ahmedabad, India, August 5, 2022. REUTERS/Amit Dave/File Photo
(Reuters) -Indian fintech firm Pine Labs' $440 million IPO was fully subscribed on the final day of bidding on Tuesday, even as concerns over profitability and valuations kept some investors at bay.
The share sale happened in the middle of a wave of listings with the IPO market set to top last year's record. So far in 2025, more than 80 companies have listed on the main board, raising 1.3 trillion rupees ($14.8 billion).
Pine Labs, backed by Peak XV Partners, Temasek, PayPal and Mastercard, provides payment solutions such as point-of-sale terminals, and competes with Paytm and Walmart-owned PhonePe.
The IPO received bids for 126.12 million shares as of 2:00 p.m. IST, against the 97.89 million shares on offer, exchange data showed.
Qualified institutional buyers led the bidding for Pine Labs shares, with subscriptions at 2.14 times the shares reserved for them. The shares set aside for retail investors were also fully subscribed. Non-institutional investors only bid for 21% of the shares reserved for them.
The company had slashed the portion offered by existing investors in its IPO by 44% and new shares by 20%, at an expected valuation of $2.9 billion, as per an updated prospectus, compared with $5 billion at the time of its last fundraise in 2022.
Pine Labs posted a loss of 1.45 billion rupees for fiscal year 2025 on a revenue of 22.74 billion rupees.
Brokerage Swastika Investmart said that based on current financials, Pine Labs' IPO seemed aggressively valued.
Angel One flagged concerns over profitability and valuations and said that Pine Labs' enterprise value to operating profit ratio was at a premium, leading to valuation discomfort despite strong sector and company outlook.
($1 = 87.8950 Indian rupees)
(Reporting by Vivek Kumar M; Editing by Mrigank Dhaniwala)
