India's digital payments unicorn Paytm, backed by Chinese business magnate Jack Ma's Ant Group, Japan's Softbank and US investor Warren Buffett, made a muted debut on the bourses on Thursday, 10 days after the company launched the country's biggest-ever initial public offering (IPO).
Scrips of the e-payments unicorn plunged over 28 percent on both the country's bourses -- the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) and the National Stock Exchange (NSE) -- on market debut, making retail investors nervous and industry watchers questioning its whopping valuation of USD 20 billion.
Paytm's listing price was Rs 1,955 and Rs 1,950 on BSE and NSE, respectively, as against the offer price of Rs 2,150. NSE's flagship NIFTY 50 index is used by domestic and global investors as a barometer of the Indian capital markets.
Also read: E-payments unicorn Paytm launches India's biggest-ever IPO
India's youngest dollar billionaire Vijay Shekhar Sharma, who founded Paytm in 2010, was quick to allay the fears of the market.
"One day's loss does not represent the whole picture. We have to do a good job in explaining the Paytm business model... This is just the first day. We are growing (in terms of) revenue, we are growing (in terms of) margin. We are expanding and we will continue to expand. It is a multiple Test match series, it's not over if one or two wickets are lost."
"The market deserves a good quality company... (that) creates good revenue," he said, urging investors to understand the business model of the e-payments firm that also offers services "like insurance and gold sales, movie and flight tickets, and bank deposits and remittances".
Sharma, the man behind Paytm, is a self-made businessman. Until the age of 15, he had no English skills and he learnt the language by listening to rock music. "That sort of gave me an underdog-ish feeling. And I think that over the period, I have championed underdog-ism. And I feel that I want to be the best underdog story out of India," he said in a 2018 interview.
Paytm's stock market debut comes barely three and a half months after India's food delivery giant Zomato became the country's first new-age technology unicorn to list on the bourses. Its listing price was Rs 115 and Rs 116 on BSE and NSE, respectively, as against the offer price of Rs 76.