Paytm founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma is no longer a billionaire.
With the share price of one of India’s most storied startups dropping more than 70% from its issue price of Rs 2,150 in the last four months, Vijaya Shekhar Sharma lost the tag of being a billionaire.
The precipitous drop exemplifies the turbulence that the Noida-based company has been experiencing. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) recently barred Paytm Payments Bank from accepting new customers.
According to Forbes, Sharma’s net worth has dropped to $999 million from a peak of $2.35 billion prior to the IPO listing. Paytm’s parent company, One97 Communications Ltd, will go public on November 18, 2021. Sharma has been losing around Rs 88 crore per day since that day.
The initial public offering raised Rs 18,300 crore for the company. On November 18, it was valued at Rs 1.39 trillion, placing it among India’s top 50 most valuable companies.
But it’s been a downhill slide ever since. The company’s market capitalization has dropped by around Rs 1 trillion, to Rs 4,000 crore. The company is now ranked 112th on the list of the most valuable companies.
The RBI’s prohibition on Paytm Payments Bank from adding new customers pushed the stock even lower. The bank has also been directed to hire an IT audit firm to conduct a thorough system audit of its information technology system.
The ban may not have a significant impact on the listed fintech’s business, but recent developments significantly reduce Paytm’s chances of being upgraded to a small finance bank licence.
