Meesho shares in focus as ₹1,997 crore worth of shares exit lock-in today

Shares of Meesho Ltd. will be in focus on Wednesday, January 7, as the newly-listed e-commerce company sees the expiry of its one-month shareholder lock in.

According to Nuvama Alternative and Quantitative Research, around 109.9 million shares, or about 2% of Meesho’s outstanding equity, will become eligible for trading following the lock in expiry.

At Tuesday's closing price, these shares are valued at roughly ₹1,997 crore.

It must be mentioned that the ending of the shareholder lock-in

does not mean that all those shares will be sold in the open market, but they only get eligible to be traded.

Despite recent volatility, Meesho shares continue to trade sharply above their IPO price. The stock is up nearly 64% from its issue price of ₹111, though it has corrected about 28% from its post listing high of ₹254.

The SoftBank-backed e-commerce platform debuted on the stock exchanges on December 10, listing at a premium to the issue price and ending its first day of trade 53% higher than the IPO price.

Meesho's three-day public issue, sized at over ₹5,000 crore, saw strong demand across investor categories.

The IPO was subscribed 79 times overall, with the retail portion subscribed more than 19 times and the qualified institutional buyers’ segment seeing 120 times subscription.

In an earlier interaction with CNBC-TV18, Meesho Chairman, Managing Director and CEO Vidit Aatrey said the company generates revenue through services offered to sellers, with logistics and advertising being the key income streams.

He added that free cash flow remains the company's most important metric, noting that Meesho has been free cash flow positive for the past two years and plans to sustain this while scaling the business.

Shares of Meesho Ltd. ended 0.46% higher on Tuesday at ₹181.69.