Decoding Ola Electric’s RHP fine print and FY24 numbers

Electric mobility company Ola Electric received approval from SEBI for its IPO and filed the red herring prospectus (RHP) on July 26. The company aims to raise Rs 6,146 crore ($740 million) which includes a fresh issue of Rs 5,500 crore ($662.7 million) and an offer for sale of up to 84,941,997 shares amounting to Rs 646 crore ($77.8 million) considering upper limit (Rs 76) of the price band.

The company has set a price of Rs 72 to 76 per share. Ola Electric’s IPO will be open on August 2 for retail investors and their anchor book for its initial public offering (IPO) will open on August 1, 2024. The closing date of the IPO is August 6, 2024.

It has appointed Kotak, BOFA Securities, Axis Capital, SBI Capital, CITI, Golaman Sachs, ICICI and BOB Capital as their lead managers. Entrackr has reviewed Ola Electric's DRHP to decode its IPO blueprint.

Ola Electric’s current captable 

According to the revised DRHP, Bhavish Aggarwal is the largest stakeholder in Ola Electric with 36.94% followed by SoftBank which holds 21.98%. Tiger Global commands 6.03% while Alpha Wave and Matrix Partners (now Z47) hold 3.49% and 3.43%, respectively. 

At the same time, Ola Electric’s employee stock options (ESOPs) pool stood at 7.67% of the total share capital.

Who is selling in the IPO?

Apart from Hyundai Motor and ANI Technologies (Ola Cabs), every major stakeholder is participating in Ola Electric's offer for sale.

During the sale of 84.9 million shares, Aggarwal is offloading 37.91 million shares amounting to Rs 288.2 crore at Rs 76 per share (upper limit of the price band), representing 2.78% of his total shareholding in Ola Electric. SoftBank will dilute its stake by 2.68% with 1.48x returns, and Tiger Global will sell 1.99% of its holding marking 6.5x gains. Alpha Wave and Temasek will sell 2.68% and 0.16% of their holdings with 1.22x and 1.01x returns, respectively.

As an early backer of Ola Electric, Matrix Partners first invested in 2018, allowing them to benefit from a lower average cost of acquisition at Rs 8.22 per share. In contrast, Tiger Global's average cost of acquisition was Rs 11.70 per share, and SoftBank invested at Rs 51.37 per share.

Importantly, based on the price band of Rs 72-76 that will be available to the public, the investors above will realize specific returns from Ola Electric.

Where will the IPO proceeds be utilized?

According to the DRHP, out of the Rs 5,500 crore in fresh funds, Rs 1,227.6 crore will be allocated to capital expenditure, Rs 800 crore to debt payment, and Rs 1,600 crore for research and development. Ola Electric will also invest Rs 350 crore in organic growth initiatives, with the remaining amount will be used for general corporate purposes.

Financial standing as of FY24

Ola Electric has shown strong growth over the past two fiscal years, with revenue increasing 13.4 times from Rs 373 crore in FY22 to Rs 5,010 crore in FY24, solely driven by sales of electric scooters. The hyper-growth has come at an efficient cost as its losses rose only 7.6% to Rs 1,584 crore in the last fiscal year (FY24) from Rs 1,472 crore in FY23.

Where did Ola Electric spend the most during FY24?

The SoftBank-backed firm allocated approximately 70% of its expenses to the cost of materials. Among these costs, cells comprised 32.7%, and power electronics accounted for 14.79%. Motors and other components collectively made up the remaining expense.

Notably, out of the total cost of materials, Ola Electric imported 36.86% alone from China ( Rs 1,618 crore) in the form of lithium-ion cells, magnets, amplifiers, and electronic integrated circuits.

Revenue breakdown by scooter model and units sold

Ola Electric offers its scooter in five variants: Ola S1 Pro (Gen1), Ola S1 Pro (Gen2), Ola S1, Ola S1 Air, and Ola S1X. The company sold 3,29,618 scooters in FY24 which is more than 2X as compared to FY23.

Ola S1 pro (Gen1 and Gen2) cumulatively generated 59.62% of the total revenue while Ola S1 Air and Ola S1 X+ added 18.93% and 10.66% of revenue to the company’s coffers. 

Importantly, the cancellation rate as a percentage of fully paid and confirmed orders rose to 9.14% in FY24, up from 7.69% in FY23.

Ola electric has a gross margin of 12.58% while TVS Motos, Eicher Motors, Bajaj Motors and Hero MotoCorp have gross margins 37.65%, 45.69%, 28.92% and 32.49%, respectively.