Indian jeweller Joyalukkas drops public listing plan, withdraws $278 mn IPO

By VarunVyas Hebbalalu and Chris Thomas

BENGALURU (Reuters) -India's Joyalukkas has withdrawn its 23 billion rupee ($278 million) initial public offering (IPO), with the jewellery retailer saying it needed more time to incorporate substantial changes to its financial results.

The company plans to refile its IPO documents "at the earliest, subject to market conditions," Chief Executive Baby George told Reuters on Tuesday, without elaborating further.

Joyalukkas, which focuses mainly on Southern India, is the latest to delay or pull its IPO plans amid market volatility and stubbornly high inflation.

Indian e-commerce firm Snapdeal pulled its $152 million IPO in December, amid a meltdown in tech stocks, while wearable electronics company boAt, in October, decided to raise funds from existing investors rather than go ahead with a planned IPO.

"The primary market is still very much in a dry state unless this global economic condition settles," said Prashanth Tapse, a research analyst at Mehta Equities.

Joyalukkas filed its IPO paper last March and planned to use 14 billion rupees of the proceeds to repay or pre-pay debt, while the rest was earmarked to open new showrooms and for general corporate purposes. It was originally scheduled to announce the IPO date in early 2023.

The company, based in the southern Indian state of Kerala, operates showrooms across roughly 68 cities.

The IPO's book runners were Edelweiss Financial Services Ltd, Motilal Oswal Investment Advisors Ltd, Haitong Securities India, and SBI Capital Markets Ltd.

None of them immediately responded to a request for comment.

Gold jewellery is a traditional investment in India, the second-biggest market for gold in the world. The World Gold Council had said last month that a rise in prices had led to a 3% slip in the consumption of the yellow metal in India.

($1 = 82.7620 Indian rupees)

(Reporting by Varun Vyas in Bengaluru; Editing by Janane Venkatraman and Savio D'Souza)