Yatra Online’s IPO to open on September 15

• The company offers access to hotels, homestays, and other accommodations through its platform.
• Its price band has been fixed at ₹135-142 per equity share.
• Investors can bid for a minimum of 105 equity shares and in multiples of 105 thereafter.
• Proceeds from the fresh issue will be used for strategic investments, customer acquisition and retention, technology and more.
  

Yatra Online’s initial public offer (IPO) will open on September 15 and close on September 20. It has fixed the price band at ₹135-142 per equity share for its public offering.

Investors can bid for a minimum lot of 105 equity shares and in multiples of 105 thereafter.

The IPO comprises a fresh issuance of shares worth ₹602 crore and an offer for sale (OFS) of up to 12,183,099 shares.

The company had undertaken a pre-IPO placement of ₹62.01 crore by way of rights issue and allotted 2,627,697 shares of face value ₹1 each to its promoter, THCL in December 2022.

Proceeds from the fresh issue will be utilized towards strategic investments, acquisitions, and inorganic growth, customer acquisition and retention, technology, and other organic growth initiatives and general corporate purposes.

SBI Capital Markets, DAM Capital Advisors and IIFL Securities are the book running lead managers of the issue and Link Intime India is the registrar to the offer.

About the company

Yatra Online offers access to hotels, homestays, and other accommodations through its platform. It is a one-stop shop for travellers, offering vacation packages as well as visa facilitation, tours, sightseeing, shows, and events.

The company claims to be India’s largest corporate travel services provider in terms of number of corporate clients. It is the third largest online travel company in India among key online travel agency (OTA) players in terms of gross booking revenue and operating revenue for FY23.

Easy Trip Planners is one of its listed peers,, while MakeMyTrip and Cleartrip are its industry peers.

“We have the largest number of hotel and accommodation tie-ups amongst key domestic OTA players of over 2,105,600 tie-ups, as on March 2023,” the company said in its RHP.

According to CRISIL, the Indian travel industry is expected to grow at 9-11% compounded annual growth rate (CAGR), driven by development of tourism infrastructure, rising discretionary spending and an increase in business and leisure travel frequency.

Online penetration within the industry is expected to reach 73-75%, and share of OTAs is expected to increase faster than captive players.

Financial information & risk factors

The company’s revenues have been growing steadily for the last three years and has turned profitable in FY23, after cutting its losses progressively over two years.

Source: RHP

Apart from Covid-19 pandemic-like effect, change in travel preferences like increased use of telepresence equipment, spending habits etc can adversely affect its business – especially since a lot of its business is derived from B2B business.

India’s travel industry is also highly competitive, the company said in its risk factors. It is also dependent on the airline ticketing business, which generates 46.82% of its revenues – and it is derived from a small number of airline suppliers in India.

The company could also be negatively affected by changes in Internet search engine algorithms and dynamics, or search engine disintermediation.

Its promoters, Travel Holding Cyprus (THCL) and Asia Consolidated DMC (ACDPL), will retain majority shareholding after the offer, which will allow them to exercise significant influence over the company.

Yatra Online has contingent liabilities in our financial statements, which if they materialise, may adversely affect its financial condition. It has ₹8.5 crore worth of claims against it not recognized as debt, and ₹31.5 crore service tax demand in FY23.