India’s Ola cabs readying for IPO process in 2021

Backed by SoftBank of Japan, the Indian ride hailing company Ola is targeting its IPO process by March-end 2012, according to Reuters.

According to the people with the direct knowledge of the matter, the company is planning to cut its workforce by up to 5% as part of preparations for the IPO process. Ola is planning to reduce its 4,500-strong permanent workforce by 4% to 5%, according to a person with an insight on the matter.

“With a view to become more nimble and have a sharper focus on growth and profitability, we are redesigning the organization to build a structure that strengthens and leverages our local and global scale and enables faster decision making across all of Ola’s group companies,” the Indian company, which a homegrown rival to Uber, stated via a statement.

Founded in 2010, Ola operates in over 250 cities and released a successful earnings report for the year ended March. The company had a 16% rise in revenue at 21.55 billion rupees ($300.96 million) for the year ended March, whereas its net loss of 11.6 billion rupees was almost 60% lesser than in the previous year.

Backed by Softbank, the IPO process of Ola would aid the Japanese company in extracting funds from the investors.

(Reference: Reuters)