SKS Microfinance has just IPO'd raising $347M write Satish Sarangarajan and John Satish Kumar in their
WSJournal piece
SKS Microfinance IPO Attracts Strong Demand...
"The IPO, the first in India by a microfinance institution, has attracted significant attention to an area of the economy that is still nascent as an organized sector. [...] The microlender, which previously attracted Sequoia Capital, Kismet Capital, Unitus, venture capitalist Vinod Khosla and Infosys Technologies founder N.R. Narayana Murthy, plans to use the proceeds to shore up its capital base. SKS aims to bolster credit to India's poorest in what is probably the world's largest microfinance market with 150 million poor households, who don't have access to banking and financial services, according to World Bank estimates published in the microlender's IPO prospectus."
But as Stephanie Strom and Vikas Bajaj write in the
NYTimes,
Rich I.P.O. Brings Controversy to SKS Microfinance...
"SKS was set up as what philanthropists call a “social enterprise” -- a business based on the concept of doing well by doing good. And there is no question that the company’s 41-year-old Indian-American founder, Vikram Akula, and investors who include prominent Silicon Valley venture capitalists will do very well indeed from the I.P.O. Mr. Akula has already privately sold shares worth almost $13 million, and he still holds stock options potentially worth $55 million. The question is whether the social good will be as amply rewarded. SKS Microfinance is not the first microlender to go public, and there has long been debate over whether social enterprises should be turned into giant commercial operations. Proponents of commercial microfinancing say the money raised can provide even more loans to the needy than relying only on charitable donations. But the I.P.O. for SKS, one of the field’s biggest stock offerings yet, has caused its own type of controversy."
Judge for yourself. Here are the holdings...
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