Shares of PB Fintech, the operator of online insurance aggregator Policybazaar and credit comparison portal Paisabazaar, tanked over 15 per cent in the afternoon trade on Tuesday after the company said that its chairman and CEO Yashish Dahiya plans to sell around 37.69 lakh equity shares via bulk deals on the stock exchanges. The scrip initially fell to Rs 595 apiece in the early deals, down 9.68 per cent on the National Stock Exchange (NSE) and 9.62 per cent on the BSE. It declined further as the trade progressed and in the early afternoon trade, it had hit an intraday low of Rs 557.00 on the BSE, down 15.4 per cent from its previous close while on NSE it touched a low of Rs 556.00, down 15.6 per cent. Over 82.84 lakh shares of PB Fintech were traded so far in afternoon deals on NSE while around 3.52 lakh shares exchanged hands on the BSE. In an exchange filing late on Monday, PB Fintech said "we hereby submit that the Company has received an intimation from Mr. Yashish Dahiya, Chairman and CEO of the Company, for an intention to sell up to 37,69,471 equity shares via bulk deals on the stock exchanges." The company further added that the aggregate shareholding of Dahiya as on March 31, 2022 was 1,90,08,349 (4.23 per cent) and post exercise of 55,09,601 ESOPs during May 2022 his aggregate shareholding increased to 2,45,17,950 (5.45 per cent). "As the ESOPs are subject to payment of taxes on exercise in addition to the payment of capital gain tax on the sale of shares, the proceeds from the sale of the 37,69,471 shares are proposed to be used to make the payment of current and future taxes," the company statement read. In November, the company had made a firm debut in the market after raising Rs 5,710 crore through its initial public offering (IPO). It had an offer price of Rs 980.00. After hitting its alltime high of Rs 1,470.00 on November 17 last year, the stock has declined over the past six months, touching an all time low of Rs 540.10 on May 10, data available on NSE showed. The company last week had reported a loss of Rs 219.61 crore for the quarter ended March 2022, down from a loss of Rs 298.02 crore in the December 2021 quarter. Commenting on the stock movement, Santosh Meena, head of research at Swastika Investmart in a note said, "The stock got listed in November 2021 and has seen almost a 70 per cent fall since its listing. The issue was exorbitantly priced at market to sales of 46.40x during its IPO, and it remains expensive despite the recent correction. The company operates in a very competitive space as there aren’t any significant barriers to entry, plus the company is still a loss-making one despite the significant rise in revenues in FY22. Further, we believe that the current market conditions are punishing companies that are growing without showing profitability and are skeptical of companies that are relying on buzzwords like "underpenetrated in India" to show a rosy future picture." Ravi Singh, vice president and head of research at Share India Securities told indianexpress.com, "PB Fintech is witnessing selling pressure as investors are exiting the stock after the news of selling of shares by the company's CEO broke out. It may continue the fall for some trading sessions due to overall weakness in the market and can touch the levels of Rs 520 in near term." He added that investors may exit their positions at current levels.
