Online education platform Veranda Learning surges on IPO debut; lists at 15% premium on BSE

Online education platform Veranda Learning Solutions made a mixed debut on the domestic bourses on Monday, with share price listing at a 14.6% premium on the BSE, while it opened 8.75% lower on the NSE. The stock debuted at ₹157 against its issue price of ₹137 per share on the BSE and, in contrast, at ₹125 on the NSE.

Post listing, Veranda's share price gained as much as 20.3% against the issue price to hit an intraday high of ₹164.85, while it touched a low of ₹149.15 on the BSE. The market capitalisation of the education firm stood at ₹914.16 crore at the time of reporting.

At the time of reporting, it was quoting at ₹163.8 on the BSE and ₹131.25 on the NSE. Meanwhile, the BSE benchmark Sensex was trading 261 points lower at 59,185 levels.

Veranda Learning has raised ₹200 crore through initial public offering (IPO), which had a price range of ₹130-137 per share. The IPO, which opened between March 29-31, was subscribed 3.53 times as it received total bids for more than 4.15 crore shares against the 1.17 crore shares on offer. The portion reserved for retail individual investors (RIIs) was subscribed 10.76 times, the non-institutional investors quota by 3.87 times, and the qualified institutional buyers (QIBs) segment by 2.02 times.

Veranda Learning Solutions offers online and offline coaching services for competitive courses such as UPSC, chartered accountant, banking and government exams to students, aspirants and graduates, professionals and corporate employees. The educational platform intends to use IPO proceeds towards repayment or pre-payment of loan, the retirement of acquisition consideration of Edureka, and to fund growth initiatives. Out of ₹200 crore, the company will use ₹60 crore to repay its debts, payment of ₹25.19 crore for acquisition consideration of Edureka, ₹50 crore towards growth initiatives, and the balance for general corporate purposes.

In September last year, the company had acquired Edureka, a live-instructor-led online solutions provider for the IT industry, for ₹245 crore. Earlier, Veranda had acquired Chennai Race Coaching Institute, a coaching institute for Banking, SSC, and PSC exams.

For the nine-month period ending December 31, 2021, as many as 42,667 students and professionals reportedly enrolled across all its courses, out of which 16,793 enrolled for the offline model and 25,874 enrolled for the online model.