Protean eGov Technologies eyes Rs 1,300-crore listing by end of October

Protean eGov Technologies (formerly NSDL e-Governance Infrastructure) is planning to make an initial public offering of around Rs 1,200-1,300 crore by the end of October, people privy to the development said.

“The company will submit its updated draft red herring prospectus before markets regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India this week … It aims to launch the IPO to the public by the third or fourth week of October,” one of the people said.

The IT-enabled solutions provider’s public issue will be entirely an offer for sale (OFS) by existing investors, giving an exit to eight of its over 20 investors, the people said.


ICICI Securities; Equirus Capital Private; IIFL Securities and Nomura Financial Advisory and Securities (India) are the merchant bankers to the issue.

Investors divesting partial shares as part of the OFS are IIFL Special Opportunities Funds, NSE Investments, Administrator of the Specified Undertaking of the Unit Trust of India (SUUTI), HDFC Bank, Axis Bank, Deutsche Bank, Punjab National Bank and Union Bank of India.

Its other shareholders include Canara Bank, HSBC, Citicorp Finance India, Standard Chartered Bank, Mauritius-based fund Soach Global and State Bank of India. In 2018, IDBI Bank had sold its entire 30% stake in the company to IIFL Wealth Management.

The company did not respond to a request for comment.

The company's IPO plans were earlier pushed back by almost two years owing to subdued equity market conditions and weak macro environment, another person added.
A key player in the public digital infrastructure and e-governance projects for government institutions, Protean, then NSDL e-Governance Infrastructure, was set up as a depository in 1995. It operated as a subsidiary of National Securities Depository Ltd (NSDL) before its demerger in 2013.

Mumbai-headquartered Protean’s key competitors include CDSL Ventures, CMS Computer, Computer Age Management Services, CSC E-Governance Services, Karvv Data Management Services, Kfin Technologies, Sify Technologies and UTI Infrastructure Technology and Services.

For the financial year ended 2022, the company reported a net profit of Rs 143.9 crore on revenue from operations of Rs 690.9 crore, compared with the previous year’s net profit of Rs 92.1 crore on revenue of Rs 603 crore.