GoAir IPO worth ₹3,600 crore gets SEBI nod. Details here

The airline, which has which has rebranded itself as ‘Go First’, plans to garner up to ₹3,600 crore through sale of shares, according to the Draft Red Herring Prospectus (DRHP), reported news agency PTI. It also plans to raise up to ₹1,500 crore by way of a pre-IPO (Initial Public Offer) placement.

The carrier, which filed its preliminary papers for the IPO in May, received its observations on August 26, according to Sebi’s latest update on processing status of the draft offer documents. The information was updated on August 27 and made public on Monday.

In Sebi parlance, issuance of observations implies its go-ahead for the IPO. Sebi in June had put in abeyance the IPO approval process of no-frills carrier Go Airline (India) Ltd. The notification on the regulator’s website did not specify any reason for putting these approvals on temporary hold; however, it said that it has issued some observations to the merchant bankers of these two issues, without specifying the particular observations.

From the net IPO proceeds, the airline plans to utilise over ₹2,015.81 crore towards pre-payment or scheduled repayment of all or a portion of certain outstanding borrowings, according to the DRHP. Global coordinators and Book Running Lead Managers to the issue are ICICI Securities, Citi and Morgan Stanley.

An amount of ₹279.26 crore would be for “replacement of letter of credits, which are issued to certain aircraft lessors towards securing lease rental payments and future maintenance of aircraft, with cash deposit”. Further, the carrier plans to repay dues of ₹254.93 crore to Indian Oil Corporation for fuel supplied to it, as per the DRHP.

GoAir started flying in late 2005. Prior to Covid, its network spanned 28 locations across India and nine international ones including Dubai, Singapore and Phuket.

(With inputs from PTI)