CarTrade IPO ⁠— the share sale by this profitable tech startup gets a unanimous call for ‘subscribe’

• CarTrade IPO offers an attractive opportunity to invest in a new age business, say analysts.
• CarTrade IPO opens on August 9 and will close on August 11.
• Online auto classifieds platform looks to raise ₹2,999 crore through the issue.
• It has already raised ₹900 crore from anchor investors ahead of its initial public offering (IPO).

CarTrade is the latest one in the long line of tech startups tapping the public market with initial public offerings (IPO). Unlike Zomato, this would be the first profitable startup to hit the stock market since EaseMyTrip.

The company is a 12-year old startup that operates online platforms like CarWale, CarTrade, BikeWale, CarTradeExchange and AutoBiz for users interested in buying and selling new and used vehicles.

The IPO of the company opens Monday and closes on August 11. It is looking to raise around ₹3,000 crore through the public listing.

Let us see what the analysts have to say about the company’s IPO:

CarTrade is a profitable player in India and one of the few players internationally in the vehicle platform space. Further, with funds of ₹668 crore in its balance sheet, CarTrade is well positioned and plans to capture adjacent business opportunities such as insurance, financing, servicing of vehicles, accessories and refurbishment and sale of cars.

The public issue of the company is opening with a price band of ₹1,585-1,618 per share. Half of the issue size has been reserved for qualified institutional buyers (QIBs), 35% for retail investors and the remaining 15% for non-institutional investors.

Analysts at Choice Broking have similar opinions about the company. “CarTrade is an electronic exchange focusing on auto sector and thus there is no peer company having similar business operations. At a higher price band...we feel it is attractive considering its scalable business model, profitable operations and business growth opportunities in the auto sector value chain,” said the report.

The company’s revenue from operations have increased at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) rate of 26.4% over FY18-FY21.

CarTrade offers a unique play on rising digitisation of new and pre-owned vehicle translation value chain/ecosystem, said a report by ICICIdirect. “We assign ‘subscribe’ rating to the issue for listing gains. Long term wealth generation at CarTrade Tech will be a function of scalability, relevance and journey towards healthier return ratios,” said the report by ICICIdirect.


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