Can you tell me about the proposed IPO of FirstCry?
Answer
Answer
FirstCry, a popular name in baby and infant products, is planning a mega initial public offering (IPO) to raise a sum of around Rs.7,600 crore or close to $1 billion. Two investment banks viz. Kotak Mahindra Capital and Morgan Stanley have already been mandated. The filing for the IPO is likely to happen sometime in May 2022, post the LIC IPO.
The IPO of FirstCry is likely to be a combination of a fresh issue component as well as an offer for sale (OFS). While the fresh issue will dilute the capital and EPS, the OFS will give an exit to some of the early investors in FirstCry. OFS will also improve free float. This is likely to be the first of its kind listing of a pure play infant specialized company.
Just to give a brief background, FirstCry was incorporated in 2010 by Supam Maheshwari and Amitava Saha. It currently has 75 lakh registered customers and catalogues over 2 lakh unique products across 6,000 brands. FirstCry sells clothing, footwear, accessories, toys, toiletries, feeding supplies etc. It has 400 storefronts across India and a presence in UAE too.
FirstCry has an e-publishing presence too, where in competes with the likes of Hopscotch and Kids Stop Press. The online publishing business of FirstCry became a unicorn in 2020 after getting funding of $296 million from Softbank. FirstCry Parenting, India's largest parenting community, is also available for online access.
It may be recollected that in 2016, FirstCry had paid Rs.362 crore for BabyOye, a part of the Mahindra & Mahindra group. If the FirstCry IPO goes through successfully, it will be the first infant specialized company to come out with an IPO. Names like Lilliput and Gini & Jony had made IPO plans but subsequently dropped it.