New Delhi: In a major development in the initial public offering market, Kalyan Jewellers India Ltd, one of the biggest gold retailers in the country had gone ahead and filed the draft prospectus for IPO with a view to raising capital. The IPO is expected to witness the company and its shareholders sell shares worth ₹1,750 crore. The company aims to raise ₹1,000 crore by selling new shares to fund business growth whereas the promoter T.S. Kalyanaraman will sell a part of his holding and private equity firm Warburg Pincus will sell its shares worth ₹250 crore and ₹500 crore, respectively. Also Read: Facebook Agrees To Pay Over 100mn Euros In Back Taxes In France After 10 Years: Reports

The fresh capital to be raised from the IPO will be utilised in funding working capital requirements and general corporate purposes, the company said in its prospectus filed with markets regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi).

So far, Warburg Pincus, which holds a 24% stake in Kalyan, has invested ₹1,700 crore in the jeweller while Warburg had initially invested in 2014 and invested ₹1,200 crore in cheque. In 2017, the PE investor committed another ₹500 crore.

Investment banks Axis Capital, ICICI Securities and Citi will be guiding the company on the IPO.

What is special about the IPO?

Meanwhile, the current retail offering will be the biggest since 2017 when D-Mart's raked in Rs 1,870 crore during its IPO.  The previous listing by a jeweller was in December 2012 when PC Jewellers hit the IPO market for a Rs 600 crore share sale, as per the New Indian Express report. It is almost after eight years after a pureplay jewellery company had hit the IPO market that Kalyan Jewellers will now raise money through the pubic offering.

Kalyan Jewellers, which filed the draft prospectus for the IPO with the stock market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) will have around a year to launch the IPO.

How did Kalyan Jewellers make a mark in the industry?

The jewellery company was founded by Kalyanaraman in 1993 with a single showroom in Thrissur. Since then it has expanded to 107 showrooms located across 21 states and union territories across the country. It also has an international presence with 30 showrooms located in the Middle East as of June 30, 2020.

As per the business daily Mint, for the year ended 31 March 2020, the jeweller reported ₹10,100.9 crore in revenue from operations, up from ₹9,770 crore the previous financial year. The company reported profit at ₹142.2 crore, compared to a loss of ₹4.8 crore in the previous year. In FY20, 78.19% of the company’s revenue came from India and 21.81% from West Asia.