Prosus eyes PayU IPO in 2025 after Swiggy's successful listing
14 Nov 2024, 02:28 PMProsus said in a statement that it had gained $2 billion on its investment in the food delivery and quick commerce firm.
Arti Singh
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A day after the stellar listing of its portfolio company Swiggy, Prosus said it is aiming to list fintech firm PayU in 2025. The Gurugram-based payments company, which is owned by Prosus, was planning to launch its IPO (initial public offering) by the end of this year at a valuation of about $5-$7 billion.
However, the plan seems to have shifted now.
It's currently "not on that path", Ervin Tu, Prosus's chief investment officer, said on a media call. "We're late into 2024 already, but we hope that it could be a 2025 event," he added.
Prosus said in a statement that it had gained $2 billion on its investment in the food delivery and quick commerce firm, in which it still has a 25% stake, Reuters reported.
Recently, Prosus CEO Fabricio Bloisi said he expects more of its Indian portfolio companies to go public in the next 12 to 18 months.
Earlier in April this year, PayU received in-principle approval from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to operate as a payment aggregator after RBI's 15 month-ban from onboarding new clients.
In a separate development, PayU India's LazyPay has halted its buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) service temporarily; and informed its merchant partners about the shutdown on November 12.
The development was exclusively reported by The Head and Tale.
In September this year, PayU Finance -- the non-banking financial company (NBFC) unit of PayU -- laid off around 100. Besides the layoffs, there has been several senior exits at PayU over the last couple of months.
The Head and Tale also exclusively reported about the exit of Wibmo CEO Suresh Rajagopalan.
“In line with the changing market dynamics, we at PayU are repivoting our Credit business strategy and sharpening focus on strategic priorities that will continue to drive success and growth for our business and enhance customer experience. This realignment is leading to some departures and we are dedicated to fully supporting all colleagues during this transition." said PayU spokesperson, without confirming the number of layoffs," PayU spokesperson had then said.
One of the sources had then said, "Fabricio Bloisi, who took over as CEO of Prosus earlier in July, was’t happy with the performance in India when he visited the country last month as the India business failed to improve profitability in FY24. The pressure to be profitable is too much so they are trying to cut costs from the business that is not generating returns for them.”
According to Prosus’ annual report, its revenue from India – the largest market in PayU’s payment service provider (PSP) business – grew 11% to $444 million in FY24 despite being unable to onboard new merchants due to the noted embargo during the year. Revenue growth was driven by increasing volumes from existing merchants and growing value-added services such as affordability, it added. However, while its payments business in India achieved a 3% trading profit margin in FY23, this worsened to -3% in FY24 due to the change in merchant and payment method mix, it noted.
It added that it has continued investing and building new opportunities such as credit in India. "The credit business revenue has grown 12x since FY21, translating into a revenue CAGR of over 128%. This growth has been coupled with cost reductions, ensuring that the trading-loss margin continued to improve YoY," it explained.
The author is Founder and Editor of The Head and Tale. She can be reached at
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