India’s investment bankers are set for their most rewarding year as local initial public offerings head for an all-time high despite the devastation brought about by a deadly Covid-19 wave.
“There were cases of bankers who showed up for work despite a death in the immediate family,” said Nipun Goel, president of investment banking at IIFL Securities in Mumbai. “I was shocked to see my colleague on Zoom calls. He said, ‘let’s get this done’, as he wanted to keep his mind occupied.” “We are working 24/7,” Venkataraman said. “When the market is good it is quite natural for issuers to accelerate their listing plans.” Zomato, a food-delivery start-up backed by Jack Ma’s Ant Group, raised $1.3bn in a July listing, fetching bankers about 2.4-billion rupees in fees, Bloomberg-compiled data show. SoftBank Group-backed digital-payments start-up PayTM has filed to mop up as much as 166-billion rupees.
“The efficiency has improved tremendously and bankers are multitasking without travel schedules,” said Venkataraman, who boarded a plane for the first time in a year in February.