Fireside Ventures, Peak XV, Others Dump Honasa Shares Worth INR 1,602 Cr

Amid a broader rally in D2C unicorn Honasa Consumer’s share prices, investors Peak XV Partners, Fireside Ventures, Stellaris Venture Partners, among others, sold its shares worth INR 1,601.68 Cr via bulk deals. 

While Peak XV (formerly Sequoia India) sold 1.23 Cr shares worth INR 610.98 Cr, Sequoia Capital Global offloaded 28.71 Lakh shares worth INR 142.12 Cr. 

Fireside Ventures sold 65.83 Lakh shares for INR 326.05 Cr, while Sofina and Stellaris dumped shares worth INR 297.79 Cr and INR 224.74 Cr, respectively. 

The shares that flooded the market were lapped up by Morgan Stanley and ICICI Prudential Life Insurance Company. While Morgan Stanley Asia Singapore Pte bought 24.17 Lakh shares for INR 119.67 Cr, ICICI Prudential bought 28.78 Lakh shares for INR 142.49 Cr. 

The bulk deals come at a time when the shares of the Varun and Ghazal Alagh-led company are on a bull run. The stock has been seeing an upward movement since the company disclosed its financial numbers for the first quarter of financial year 2024-25 (Q1 FY25).

The startup’s profit after tax jumped 62.9% to INR 40.2 Cr during the quarter from INR 24.7 Cr in the same quarter of previous year on the back of increase in the sales of its beauty products. Operating revenue grew 19.3% on a year-on-year (YoY) basis to INR 554 Cr in the reported quarter.

Meanwhile, brokerages have been bullish on Honasa’s house of brands strategy. Earlier in July, Emkay gave the company a price target of INR 525 by June 2025. 

“Our ground checks suggest faster scale up of new brands like The Derma Co and Aqualogica. We foresee a distribution shift in the top-50 towns aiding the Mamaearth brand, where repeats are ensuring. We expect enhanced profitability in hero SKUs, where Honasa is likely to reduce trade margin, given healthy repeats,” it said.

After touching a record high of INR 546.5 earlier in the week, the shares of the startup slumped 5.48% on the BSE on Thursday (September 12) amid the bulk deals and closed the session at INR 493.40 apiece.

At the end of the trading on Thursday, the market cap of the D2C unicorn stood INR 16,026 Cr (about $1.90 Bn).

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