Funds managed by New York-based investment management firm Neuberger Berman have marked down the valuation of the shares they hold in fintech company Pine Labs by 38% and online pharmacy PharmEasy’s parent API Holdings by 21%, according to filings made with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.
In a latest report, PharmEasy has received another valuation cut. The epharmacy unicorn’s investor Janus Henderson has reportedly slashed its valuation to about $2.8 Bn. The global asset management company’s filings with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) showed that it has cut the valuation of its holding in PharmEasy by 50%. Janus Henderson picked a stake in PharmEasy in September 2021.
The chill in the consumer Internet investment ecosystem and the subsequent cooling down in startups’ growth in India are now being felt through a series of markdowns by US institutional investors of their investment in late-stage companies.
It was reported that funds managed by US investment firm Vanguard marked down the valuation of ride-hailing company Ola by 35% to $4.8 billion. Prior to this, Invesco had slashed Swiggy’s valuation to $5.5 billion, from a peak of over $10 billion, while Blackrock cut edtech giant Byju’s valuation by half to about $11 billion.
According to regulatory filings, Neuberger Berman funds reduced the valuation of their stake in Pine Labs to $3.1 billion as of February 28, 2023 from $5 billion in July 2021 when the startup had raised funds. For API Holdings, it reduced the valuation to $4.4 billion from $5.6 billion ascribed to it during its last fundraising in October 2021. The investment management firm had in February 2022 marked up the valuation of its API Holdings stake to $6.7 billion.
In its filing, Neuberger Berman said it favoured continuing to trim its large Indian overweight portfolio companies to fund “a variety of purchases across select geographies”.
Notably, Pine Labs investor Invesco, which recently reduced the valuation of food and grocery delivery platform Swiggy’s holding in its books, maintained the fintech company’s valuation at $5 billion.
US institutional investors and the funds managed by them review the value of their holdings at regular intervals.
It was reported earlier this month that Pine Labs had deferred its planned initial public offering considering a rout in the global markets. The company ended FY23 with net revenue of Rs 1,600 crore and positive earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation.
Source: The Economic Times