Paytm posts updated shareholding for Q4 — FPI shareholding almost doubles

tech.hindustantimes.com:

Paytm, India's leading payments and financial services company, today filed its revised shareholding pattern for Q4FY23 with the stock exchanges. The company has seen an increase in the shareholding of domestic institutions as well as foreign portfolio investors (FPIs). Domestic institutional shareholding has grown from 1.9% to 3.2% with Mutual Funds (MFs) and Alternate Investment Funds (AIFs) increasing their stake. The overall shareholding of Mutual Funds has increased by almost 1% QoQ with Mirae Asset's stake has grown from 1.1% to 1.8%.

Foreign institutional shareholding has seen a jump from 6.7% to 11.5%, with FPIs increasing their stake in the company substantially. FDI shareholding is at 60% as compared to 66% last quarter primarily due to the stake sale by Alibaba. The Chinese e-commerce company has completely exited the company by selling its entire stake in January and February. 

Consequent to the buyback, even though its total number of shares had remained the same, Ant's holding in Paytm had moved up slightly to 25.47%. Ant Financial has now come down below 25% to 24.94% by selling 3.3 mn shares, which was expected as per regulatory guidelines. However, on a QoQ basis, Ant shareholding has remained constant (24.94% in Mar'23 as compared to 24.86% in Dec'22). It is worthy to note that Alibaba and Ant are two separate entities with no material relation. 

Paytm continues to show sustained growth across all its key businesses. While Paytm's Q4 results are awaited, in the last quarter, the company achieved its milestone of operating profitability, much ahead of its September 2023 guidance. The fintech giant's EBITDA before ESOP cost stood at ₹31 Cr with EBITDA before ESOP margin at 2% of revenues as compared to (27%)