Benzinga | Oct 4, 2021 09:27AM EDT

Indian Digital Payments Firm Seeks Valuation Of $20B -$22B

* Digital payments and financial firm Paytm are readying up for a pre-Diwali initial public offering (IPO) launch, CNBC reports.

* Investors including ANT, Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (NYSE:BABA), SoftBank Group Corp (OTC: SFTBY) (OTC: SFTBF), Berkshire Hathaway Inc (NYSE: BRK-A) (NYSE: BRK-B), Elevation Capital, and Paytm founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma will sell shares through the offer for sale (OFS). The DRHP also mentions RNT Associates of Ratan Tata as a selling shareholder.

* Paytm filed its share sale prospectus in July for a 16,600 crore IPO, with a sale of fresh stock and offer for sale (OFS) by shareholders, each worth 8,300 crores, Moneycontrol reports.

* Paytm seeks to raise $2.2 billion, receiving demand from sovereign wealth funds (SWFs) and foreign institutional investors (FIIs), valuing it about $20 billion - $22 billion.

* An SWF has offered to buy over $500 million of shares in the IPO.

* Paytm is aiming for a pre-Diwali IPO launch. It is awaiting approval from market watchdog Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), likely this week.

* Price Action: BABA shares traded lower by 1.62% at $141.87 in the premarket session on the last check Monday.