Paytm, India’s leading digital payments provider, is aiming to raise about 218 billion rupees ($3 billion) in an initial public offering late this year, according to a person familiar with the deal, in what could be the country’s largest debut ever. Bloomberg has the story.

The startup, backed by investors including Berkshire Hathaway Inc., SoftBank Group Corp. and Ant Group Co., plans to list in India around November and its offering could coincide with the Diwali festival season, said the person, asking not to be named because the details are private.

Paytm, formally called One97 Communications Ltd., is targeting a valuation of around $25 billion to $30 billion.The One97 board plans to meet this Friday to formally approve the IPO, said the person. Paytm declined to comment in response to emailed questions.

If successful, Paytm’s initial share sale would surpass Coal India Ltd.’s offering, which raised more than 150 billion rupees in 2010 in the country’s largest IPO so far.Banks shortlisted to run the Paytm offering include Morgan Stanley, Citigroup Inc. and JPMorgan Chase & Co., with Morgan Stanley the leading contender, the person said. The process is expected to get rolling in late June or early July. JPMorgan and Citigroup declined to comment; Morgan Stanley didn’t respond to requests for comment

The public market debut will include a mix of new and existing shares to meet regulatory obligations in India. The country’s regulations require that 10% of shares are floated within two years and 25% within five years.

Karan Sharma, co-head of the digital and technology investment banking practice at Mumbai-based Avendus Capital Pvt., said there is strong demand for tech IPOs. While giants like Apple Inc. and Amazon.com Inc. have proven the potential for lucrative returns, there are few options for investors looking to get a foothold in India’s burgeoning digital economy.

“The market capitalization of companies listed on BSE has topped $3 trillion, but there are hardly any listed Internet companies in which investors can partake,” Sharma said, referring to the Bombay Stock Exchange. “There’s also massive latent demand from global investors who have large allocations for emerging markets.”

Paytm, led by founder and Chief Executive Officer Vijay Shekhar Sharma, has been focusing on ramping up revenue and monetizing its services over the past year. It’s expanded beyond digital payments into banking, credit cards, financial services, wealth management and digital wallets. It also supports India’s financial payments backbone, the Unified Payments Interface or UPI.

Paytm has fended off stiff competition from a swath of global players including Walmart Inc.-owned PhonePe, Google Pay, Amazon Pay as well as Facebook Inc.-owned WhatsApp Pay. It has the biggest market share of India’s merchant payments.Paytm has over 20 million merchant partners and its users make 1.4 billion monthly transactions, according to numbers in a recent company blog post.In a recent conversation, CEO Sharma said Paytm had its best ever quarter in the first three months of this year after pandemic-related spending spurred digital payments.

Sharma of Avendus says there are likely to be many India tech companies heading for public debuts in the next few years. He counts 57 that have grown to unicorn status, worth $1 billion or more.

“Many of these companies are seeing 50 to 60% growth annually, are profitable,” Sharma said. “The market is waiting for these companies to go public.”

I welcome you to an amazing management and leadership program which begins on June 7. It runs for 12 weeks. The faculty members – about 140 of them – come from the very best companies you admire: Microsoft, Flutterwave, Shell, MTN, Pass, Amazon, Nigerian Breweries, Access Bank, Mastercard, USAID, etc. The program is optimized for business execution and growth, with digital operational overlay.

It runs 100% online with thrice weekly live sessions. The theme is Innovation, Growth & Digital Execution – Techniques for Building Category-King Companies. All contents are self-paced, recorded and archived which means participants do not have to be at any scheduled time to consume contents.

Register for Tekedia Mini-MBA; co-share and co-learn with us. Early bird registration ends today.

Non-profit Youth Up , an organization which works with youth across Africa, has just concluded recruiting the recipients of Jollof Republik (Texas, USA) scholarships. These 10 scholars are attending Tekedia Mini-MBA (June 7 – Sept 1, 2021) free, courtesy of full scholarships from Jollof Republic. The scholars come from Ghana, Nigeria, South Africa, Cameroon, Kenya, and Sierra Leone.

Jollof Republik  is uniting people of a colorful heritage. It guarantees an authentic cultural experience, an opportunity to create impactful relationships, and a community that builds bridges and harnesses our collective strengths.

Jollof Republik, we wish you open markets and opportunities as you continue to serve your customers, and bless humanity. Thank you for your partnership.

To the scholars, welcome to Tekedia Institute.

Join me to welcome 10 ART Foundation Scholars to Tekedia Institute Mini-MBA which begins June 7 to end Sept 1, 2021. Founded by Rasheed Adebayo, ART FOUNDATION, a charity organization, aims at moving the less-privileged in communities in all the states in Nigeria from Poverty to Plenty.

Their  slogan is P2P which means Poverty 2 Plenty. ART does this by providing enablers  such as scholarships, food banks, trainings and development, and ethics and value orientation programmes.

At Tekedia Institute we celebrate these scholars. They will attend one of the finest management and leadership programs in Africa, and we are very confident they will be prepared to experience PLENTY because the future is full of abundance, irrespective of the past.

To ART and Mr Adebayo, thank you for serving.

Welcome, ART Scholars. Welcome to Tekedia Institute.

This is a big revelation in the Nigerian business climate. Yes, the Nigerian government through NNPC, the national oil corporation, is planning to acquire 20% of equity in Dangote Refinery: “I can tell you today that we are seeking to have a 20 per cent minority stake in Dangote Refinery as part of our collaboration and you know that there’s a huge quantity of crude for that refinery.” So, magically, the Nigerian people have essentially solved any risk within Dangote Refinery as the world begins to move post-hydrocarbons. Depending on valuation, who knows, the company can even make “profit” before the first day of refining crude.

What do I mean? If Dangote Refinery invested $10 billion in that refinery, and now values the business at $50 billion and  Nigeria takes 20% stake, it simply means that Dangote Refinery has recovered the $10 billion. Magically, it does not need to spend years paying back debtors, etc, as it can return the money immediately!

NNPC Chief Operating Officer, Refining and Petrochemicals, Mr Mustapha Yakubu, at the virtual event, stated that one of its divisions, the Greenfield Refining Projects Division (GRPD) was handling the negotiations with Dangote Refinery.

He said: “We have what we call the Greenfield refinery and the Greenfield Refining Projects Division (GRPD) of the NNPC. What we do, our strategy is to collaborate and seek strategic partnerships with private investors.

At the moment, we have Dangote Refinery, which is the 650,000 barrels per day capacity, plus a mini 80,000 tonnes per annum petrochemical plant.

What are we doing there? I can tell you today that we are seeking to have a 20 per cent minority stake in Dangote Refinery as part of our collaboration and you know that there’s a huge quantity of crude for that refinery.

That’s 650,000 barrels, going into a single crude distillation unit (CDU). When that comes on board, it will also wet the nation for us.”

But how would Nigeria get the money to pay the refiner? We have a new revenue source called Recovered Loot: “The Minister of Finance and National Planning, Zainab Ahmed has revealed that the government has been borrowing from recovered loots to fund the budget. The minister also revealed that the government has not been able to repay back the loans taken so far. She revealed this while appearing before the House of Representatives committee investigation recovered loots on Thursday.”

Because more recovered loots are coming back, we are sure that resources would be available to buy this 20% stake, even as Nigeria continues to look for funds to fix its own refineries! What a country!