Latent View shares debut in market with 160% premium to offer price

Shares of Latent View Analytics more than doubled in their market debut on Tuesday, signalling strong investor demand for the profit-making Indian startup days after the listing debacle of digital payments firm Paytm.

Latent View, whose initial public offering (IPO) was oversubscribed more than 300 times, gained as much as 178.2% to 548 rupees after debuting at 512.20 rupees in pre-open trade, a 160% premium to the offer price of 197 rupees.

At the session high, the data analytics firm was valued at 108.40 billion rupees ($1.45 billion).

"The company's strength is that it operates in a niche segment but is relevant to businesses across sectors," said Narendra Solanki, head of equity research (fundamental) at Anand Rathi Investment Services.

The startup, whose strong financials and client base attracted investor interest, was founded in 2006 and provides a range of services including business analytics and data engineering services and counts the likes of Adobe, Uber Technologies and 7-Eleven among its clients.

"The focus of our work is towards solving the more complicated and higher-end problems that our clients face, and the pandemic has accelerated the need for companies to process data to find such solutions," Chief Executive Officer Rajan Sethuraman told Reuters on Monday.

Latent View clocked a 25.6% surge in profit to 914.6 million rupees for the year ended March, and rakes in more than 90% of its annual revenue from U.S.-based clients, according to its prospectus.

"We are already cash-positive and internally feel confident that now is the right time (for an IPO)," Sethuraman added.

Paytm's dismal debut last week that saw its shares tumble more than 27% had raised doubts about upcoming IPOs and sparked concerns about overvaluation in the domestic equity market.

"It is another stellar listing after a disappointment from Paytm that indicates the market is ready and has an appetite to reward quality IPOs," said Santosh Meena, head of research at Swastika Investmart Ltd.

($1 = 74.5500 Indian rupees)

(Reporting by Soumyajit Saha and Anuron Kumar Mitra in Bengaluru; Additional reporting by Abhirup Roy in Mumbai; Editing by Arun Koyyur and Sherry Jacob-Phillips)