By Ashwin Manikandan and Vivek Kumar M
MUMBAI (Reuters) -Three large sovereign funds, including Norway’s Norges Bank Investment Management, Abu Dhabi Investment Authority and GIC of Singapore are among the investors participating in the IPO of Indian stock broker Groww’s parent Billionbrains Garage Ventures, two sources directly aware of the matter said.
The IPO will rank among the largest offerings so far in 2025, following floats by the likes of Tata Capital, LG Electronics India and HDB Financial, in what is expected to be a record year for fundraising in the primary market.
The firm’s 66.3 billion rupee ($754 million) IPO opened for large institutional investors, called anchor investors in Indian regulatory parlance, on Monday.
Groww has set a price band of 95-100 rupees per share for the IPO, valuing the firm at around $7 billion at the upper end. The share sale opens for all investors on Tuesday and closes on November 7.
The total size of the anchor investment book is set to be 29.50 billion rupees ($335.63 million) with shares being issued at the upper end of the price band, the two sources added.
Reuters could not determine the size of individual investment by the three sovereign funds.
Close to 40 investors including local banks, mutual funds and foreign portfolio investors will participate in the anchor investment round, one of the sources said.
Abu Dhabi Investment Authority and Norges Bank Investment Management declined to comment, while GIC of Singapore and Groww did not respond to emails seeking comment.
Bengaluru-based Groww, which had 14.38 million active users on its platform as of June 30, competes with local rivals such as Zerodha and Angel One, in the country’s fast-growing capital market.
Existing shareholders, including Tiger Global and Peak XV Partners, are selling a total of 557.2 million shares in the IPO, compared with 574.2 million shares disclosed in September.
Groww is also issuing new shares worth 10.6 billion rupees ($120.60 million).
($1 = 87.8950 Indian rupees)
(Reporting by Ashwin Manikandan in Mumbai and Vivek Kumar M in Bengaluru; Editing by Harikrishnan Nair)
