Groww CEO says IPO "somewhere down the line" but stopped short of giving timeline

At the NDTV World Summit 2024 here in the national capital, Keshre said its IPO is "somewhere down the line".

"May be in some time. Its somewhere down the line but we don't know when," he said at the conclave.

Companies are increasingly going public or intending to go public in India, given country's booming IPO market and its economic growth prospects.

Groww moved its headquarters to India from the US recently.

Asked why has Groww shifted its headquarters from the US to India, Keshre said there was no reason why Groww headquarters should not be in India.

Groww was started in 2016.

"Groww is an Indian company. Customers are in India, management is in India, all operations are in India, so it did not kind of make sense to be outside India. There is no reason why we should not be in India."

"In the long terms that's a price you pay but in the long term its good for us," he said, responding to if he had to pay high taxes to relocate in India.

Asked what was the Idea behind setting up Groww, he said he was passionate about investing and he started investing in 2000 in the college days.

"I started investing when I was second year in college in Bombay, in 2000-2001. I was really passionate about investing."

Looking at investors behaviour in India, he said he and his other co-founders thought that there is an opportunity to create a big impact leveraging technology to reach out to people.

Did he expected this growth trajectory, he said, upbeat market, fundamental changes in India specially the Digital India initiative, Aadhar, KYC, UPI, and financial awareness played a key role in these years.

"There were some signals that this is the very very kind of long-term wave and this is India's time," Keshre added.

On F&O and derivatives trading, he said 15-20 per cent of Groww customers do derivatives trading.

"Over the last few year, the interest in derivatives trading was high. Regulators thinks about customers and investors, and it is more or less aligns with our thought process. What matters is what money our people making in the longer term."

On asked whether he feels retail customer protection is needed, Keshre said there are certain things where it is needed and Indian regulator is in the right direction.

"It will impact (volumes). Of course there will be impact," he said, talking about the consequence of the recent SEBI norms on derivatives trading.

As retail investors are increasingly incurring losses in equity index derivatives (F&O) trade, SEBI lately put in place as many as six measures to strengthen the derivatives framework, including raising minimum contract size. These announced measures will be made effective in phases starting November 20.

Recently, a study conducted by the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) has revealed that approximately 93 per cent, or over 9 out of 10 individual traders in the equity futures and options (F&O) segment, continue to incur significant losses. Despite consecutive years of losses, more than 75 per cent of loss-making traders continued trading in F&O.

The aggregate losses of individual traders exceeded Rs 1.8 lakh crore over the three-year period between 2021-22 and 2023-24, according to the study.

F&O, which stands for Futures and Options, refers to financial derivatives that allow traders to speculate on asset price movements without owning the asset itself. The underlying asset can range from stocks, bonds, commodities, and currencies to indices, exchange rates, or even interest rates. (ANI)