Shares of PB Fintech, the operator of online insurance aggregator Policybazaar and credit comparison portal Paisabazaar, slumped 11.5% on Tuesday, after the company notified that chairman and CEO Yashish Dahiya was offloading over 37.69 lakh shares through bulk deals. The decline the second-biggest one since its listing. In February this year, Dahiya had sold another 60.88 lakh shares through market sale.
Shares were sold at an average price of Rs 610.24 on the NSE, valued at Rs 230.03 crore. The stock ended Tuesday’s session at Rs 582.90 on the NSE. Buyers were not immediately known.
In an exchange filing late on Monday, PB Fintech said, “We hereby submit that the company has received an intimation from Yashish Dahiya, chairman and CEO, for an intention to sell up to 37,69,471 equity shares via bulk deals on the stock exchanges.” The release further said exercising ESOPs during May 2022 Dahiya took his holdings to 5.45% from 4.23% in March 2022. “There is no further sale of shares planned beyond these shares, at least for one year,” the release said.
After hitting a high of Rs 1,447.95 on November 17, the stock has been on a losing streak, with investors who participated in IPO witnessing an erosion to the tune of 40.5%. Shares of PB Fintech went public in November last year with an offer price of Rs 980. The company, the worst performer on Nifty200 on Tuesday, was also the most traded stock by volume. A total of 1.1 crore shares changed hands on Tuesday, which was 15 times more than their three-month, full-day average.
According to the insider trading data, designated persons, including employees of PB Fintech, have offloaded 3.15 lakh shares worth Rs 41.83 crore since November last year.
While key management personnel of Nazara have sold shares worth Rs 183.55 crore since March last year, another newly-listed firm FSN E-Commerce saw Rs 437 crore worth of shares getting sold though market sale after listing.
The negative sentiment also rubbed off on other newly-listed firms on Tuesday. While Zomato slid 6.4% on the NSE, Veranda Learning Solutions and LIC lost 3.1% each. The BSE IPO index, which tracks the value of companies for two years on successful completion of listing, has lost 24.5% so far in 2022. In contrast, the Sensex has declined 5.4% during the same period.