ICICI Venture sells naukri.com shares!
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TOI: ICICI Venture the first venture fund to invest in Naukri.com (Infoedge Ltd) which now can be termed as India’s first public limited internet company has sold its % stake of around 5% for around 80 crores through the secondary markets to Fidelity.
ICIC Venture which has total assets in excess of $2bn, is believed to have sold close to 13.6 lakh shares of Info Edge Ltd at an average price of Rs 586 a share.
With this sale ICICI Venture is left with about 3% in Info Edge Ltd. Icici Venture were the first investors in Naukri.com way back in year 2000-01 when they invested Rs.7.3 crore for around 10% stake. After the IPO their stake diluted to around 8%. But even then this sales has fetched ICICI Venture returns of roughly 15-times its initial investment!
Now the question is have ICICI sold too soon? I mean with the 174 crores that Naukri.com has generated through the IPO valuations could rise further.. But some analysts feel that the current valuation is already stretched. “As the stock does not have a benchmark in the domestic bourses, there has been a debate as to what could be the fair valuations for such companies. But, I feel valuations at 28 times ’07-08 earnings per share (EPS —Rs 21) appear stretched,” said an investment strategist with a brokerage.
Well only time will tell whether this move by ICICI was a little too early or not.. But given the fact that they have mad 15 times their money in 5 years i guess they would be satisfied if not very very happy!
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