Prudent Corporate Advisory Services plans to float IPO in November

Retail wealth management firm Prudent Corporate Advisory Services is planning to launch its IPO in the second half of November that will see private equity firm TA Associates making partial exit, the company's top official said on Sunday.

The company, which filed its preliminary initial public offering (IPO) papers with markets regulator Sebi in August, said the public issue is entirely an offer for sale (OFS) of 85,49,340 equity shares.

As a part of the OFS, Wagner Ltd, an entity of TA Associates, will offload 82,81,340 equity shares and Shirish Patel, Whole-time Director and Chief Executive Officer of Prudent, will sell up to 2.68 lakh equity shares, as per the draft red herring prospectus (DRHP).

"TA Associates will partially exit through the public issue as it will dilute about 20 per cent of its shareholding through the public issue, while Patel will divest 0.65 per cent stake in the company," Sanjay Shah, promoter and chairman, Prudent Corporate Advisory, told PTI.

At present, Wagner owns 39.91 per cent shareholding in Prudent and Patel has 3.15 per cent stake.

"We are planning to launch the IPO in the second half of November. It could be launched between November 15 and November 30," Shah said.

According to him, the main objective of the initial share-sale is to provide some partial exit to the private equity firm.

In addition, the public issue will help in enhancing visibility and awareness of the company's brands and in providing new opportunities to expand growth initiatives, he added.

Prudent is one of the leading independent retail wealth management services groups (excluding banks) in India and is amongst the top mutual fund distributors in terms of average assets under management and commission received.

Apart from mutual funds, it also distributes financial products like insurance, portfolio management schemes, alternative investment funds, bonds, unlisted equities, stock broking solutions, loans against securities, NPS among others.

The company provides wealth management services to 7.73 lakh retail investors through 17,583 mutual fund distributors (MFDs) on its business-to-business-to-consumer platform and is spread across branches in 105 locations in 20 states in the country.

Speaking about Prudent's future growth strategies, Shah said the company is planning to acquire new customers through existing mutual fund distributors. Further, it will expand the target customer base to HNIs and affluent segments.

He, further, said that the firm is also looking to strongly focus on increasing non-mutual fund revenues.

"The company will increase its presence in select underpenetrated markets especially in tier 1 and tier 2 cities through our phygital model," he said.

Besides, the company will continue to make investment in IT infrastructure to drive innovation and improve user interface. Also, it will strengthen data analytics capabilities in order to design new products, he added.

The firm offers digital wealth management solutions through FundzBazar, PrudentConnect, Policyworld, WiseBasket, Prubazar and CreditBasket.

On Friday, Prudent announced that it has acquired the mutual fund business of Karvy Stock Broking (KSB). Now, the mutual fund investors and distributors of Karvy Stock Broking will become part of Prudent.

According to Crisil data, there are 1.11 lakh AMFI Registration Number (ARN) holders registered with AMFI as of March 2021, while the number of ARNs empanelled with Prudent stood at 17,583, which is 15.84 per cent of the industry.