New Delhi: Nazara Technologies made a bumper debut on the stock market on Tuesday. The shares of Nazara were listed at Rs 1,990 on NSE, a 80.74 per cent gain over the issue price of Rs 1,101. On BSE, the scrip got listed at Rs 1,971 with a gain of 79.02 per cent. Nazara has become the first gaming company to list on stock market in India.
Ace investor Rakesh Jhunjhunwala holds 10.82 per cent stake in the company which was worth Rs 656 crore at listing. In terms of valuation, Nazara has become his sixth largest stock bet.
Jhunhunwala did not participate in the offer for sale. He is believed to be already sitting on huge gains on his investment in mobile gaming. He invested Rs 180 crore in the gaming firm 13 years back in 2008.
The much-followed Rs 583 crore IPO, for which the shares were sold between March 17 and 19, was a big hit among investors. The IPO received a subscription of 176 times, which was the third biggest for an IPO with an issue size of over Rs 200 crore. HNIs lapped up the issue, bidding for 390 times their quota limit. The portion reserved for qualified institutional bidders (QIB) was subscribed 104 times, and that forretail investor 75 times.
Despite so much interest in recent times, some of the IPOs have failed to offer reasonable listing pop in debut trade, but analysts were very positive on Nazara.
Rakesh Jhunjhunwala was at the Times Network Economic Conclave 2021 when he said he would have made 20 private equity investments by far, but 10 of them turned out to be duds, or were written off. On the other hand, five of his other private equity investments delivered moderately while five others delivered beautifully. Nazara is likely to be part of his profitable bets. The global gaming industry size was pegged at $157.50 billion in 2020, but the size of the Indian gaming industry was merely $1.5 billion, roughly 25 per cent of Bollywood.
Increase in the number of smartphone and internet users provide the growth for the industry. Analysts liked the issue of Nazara, given its peak position in a highly under-penetrated market along with wide product portfolio, strong relationship and network. A strong growth is expected for the mobile gaming firm over the next 2-3 years given their recent acquisitions along with the first-mover advantage.
