Ola Electric IPO to be first by auto company in 20 years

MUMBAI: Ola Electric’s forthcoming IPO would be the first such offering by an auto maker in India after more than two decades. In 2003, passenger car major Maruti Suzuki’s (then Maruti Udyog) IPO hit the market.

With an expected size of about Rs 8,500 crore (about $1 billion), the Ola Electric IPO will rank among the top 15 offerings in India by size, industry data showed. The company is also expected to be the first pure play electric vehicle (EV) manufacturer to list on the Indian bourses.

Ola Electric is expected to file the draft prospectus this month. The issue would be a combination of fresh equity and offers for sale by some of its existing investors, sources said. Marquee global investors like Temasek of Singapore and SoftBank of Japan are among its investors.

Since the company is in the process of filing the draft offer document, it didn’t comment for this story.

In October this year ,it raised Rs 3,200 crore through a mix of equity and debt. A major part of this fund is being used to fast track an EV manufacturing unit and a battery unit at its Tamil Nadu gigafactory, which is expected to be operational by early 2024, sources said. A gigafactory is a large manufacturing facility that produces electric vehicles aimed at decarbonising the environment.