Paytm IPO, India's largest, crawls towards full subscription on Day 3

Indian fintech firm Paytm's initial public offering of up to Rs 18,300 crore crawled towards a full subscription in the final hours of its issue period on Wednesday, signalling tepid demand for the country's largest stock market listing.

As of 1:30 IST, Paytm's offer of 48.3 million shares had received 55.9 million bids, according to stock exchange data.

Institutional investors bid for 1.88 times the shares reserved for them, while retail investors subscribed for 1.5 times the shares on offer.

The lacklustre response stood in sharp contrast to the strong demand for other Indian start-ups like food delivery firm Zomato and e-commerce beauty platform FSN E-Commerce Ventures (Nykaa), which investors snapped up during the issue period and saw stellar market debuts.

Loss-making Zomato's issue was oversubscribed by more than 38 times and profitable Nykaa's issue was oversubscribed by nearly 82 times at the end of their issue periods.

Nykaa made its debut on Wednesday at a 79.4% premium to its offer price, while Zomato in late July opened at a 53% premium to its IPO offer price.

India has seen an IPO frenzy this year as investors ride a wave of liquidity that has taken domestic markets to record highs. Dozens of companies have tapped the capital market and some everyday brands like Oyo, Dehlivery and PolicyBazaar have sought stock exchange listings.

Paytm, which is backed by Ant Group, SoftBank's Vision Fund and Berkshire Hathaway, has priced its issue at Rs 2,080-2,150 per share, in what is expected to be India's largest stock market listing, surging past miner Coal India's Rs 15,000 crore IPO more than a decade ago.

Paytm - which offers a range of services from banking, shopping, movie and travel ticketing to gaming - last week said it allocated shares worth 82.35 billion rupees to more than 100 institutional investors, including the government of Singapore, BlackRock Global Funds, Canada Pension Plan Investment Board and Abu Dhabi Investment Authority.