Oyo IPO may come in early 2023 as firm files fresh financial documents with Sebi

This festive season, Oyo Hotels is putting its house in order to be ready for an initial public offering in early 2023. The firm has filed fresh financial documents with the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi), sources told CNBC-TV18.

They said the firm had filed an addendum to Draft Red Herring Prospectus (DRHP) with Sebi, and the addendum has updated financial numbers for the first quarter of FY23.

This is not the first time Oyo founder Ritesh Agarwal is planning to make a stock market debut. The company had to shelve its IPO plans earlier this year as the travel industry took a hit due to COVID-related restrictions.

The company had filed preliminary papers with Sebi to raise Rs 8,430 crore through an initial share sale in October last year. Later, reports said the company was preparing to settle for a lower valuation of $7-8 billion against the $11 billion it initially targeted.

However, with a recovery in travel and cost-cutting measures aiding its financials, the company is back on track with its IPO plans.

Oyo Hotels clocked its first EBITDA (or earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation, a widely used measure of core corporate profitability) profit in this quarter.

Sebi is likely to consider Oyo Hotels IPO papers after the company submits the second quarter statement with it. Going by the pace, Oyo Hotels is likely to target launching its IPO by the fourth quarter of FY23.

In August 2021, when OYO raised $5 million from Microsoft, it was valued at $9.6 billion. SoftBank Group owns about 47 percent of the Gurugram-based hotel aggregator company, while Agarwal owns a third of the firm.