Credit and finance for MSMEs: Pune-based Pace E-Commerce Ventures, which sells kids’ bedding, furniture, housewares and essentials, was the latest SME to list on the BSE SME platform, taking the total count of listed companies to 405, BSE announced on Thursday. The company came out with an initial public offering of 64,59,600 equity shares of Rs 10 each for cash at a price of Rs 103 per equity share, aggregating to Rs 66.53 crore and successfully completed its public issue on October 13, 2022.
Ahmedabad-based Interactive Financial Services Limited was the lead manager of Pace E-Commerce Ventures. The company also caters to on-demand printing and manufacturing of products for both B2C and B2B customers and sells on the e-commerce marketplace Amazon in India also.
So far, 152 companies have migrated to the main board from the SME exchange. The 404 companies listed on the BSE SME Platform have raised Rs 4,412 crore from the market while the total market capitalization of 404 companies as of October 19, 2022, was Rs 62,000 crore. “BSE is the market leader in this (SME) segment with a market share of 61 per cent,” BSE said. As of Thursday, 253 companies were listed on BSE SME while 33 companies were suspended so far. The SME exchange was launched in March 2012.
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Pace E-commerce Ventures’ adds to the growing list of companies looking at stock exchanges for raising credit. While fund-raising plans through equity markets remained lacklustre as only 17 companies raised Rs 35,847 crore via mainboard initial public offerings (IPOs) till September in the current fiscal, there was a sharp contrast in the SME segment, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) noted in its October bulletin citing data from the market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI).
“There was substantial activity in September 2022 in the SME segment with 19 companies (the highest number since May 2018) raising funds via IPOs,” the RBI said. From six SME IPOs during April, May and June each, the number increased to 11 in July before slipping to four in August and finally bouncing back to 19 in September in the current fiscal.