Nayar who owns half of Nykaa has joined the ranks of the world’s richest and is now worth about $6.5 billion as shares of the firm richest self-made female billionaire
Falguni Nayar has become a billionaire almost overnight when shares of her beauty startup Nykaa surged as much as 89 per cent when they started trading on Wednesday, a Bloomberg report in the Gulf News says.
Nayar who owns half of Nykaa has joined the ranks of the world’s richest and is now worth about $6.5 billion as shares of the firm richest self-made female billionaire
She’s now ranks as India’s wealthiest self-made female billionaire, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
FSN E-Commerce Ventures, Nykaa’s parent entity, is India’s first woman-led unicorn to hit the stock exchange. It priced its initial public offering at the top end of a marketed range, raising 53.5 billion rupees ($722 million). The stock was up 78% as of 10:36 a.m. in Mumbai.
Nayar, who formerly headed a top Indian investment bank, founded Nykaa in 2012 just months before turning 50. Back then, most Indian women bought makeup and hair-care products at neighbourhood mom-and-pop stores where the selection was scanty and trials unheard of.
The startup has since grown into the country’s leading beauty retailer, buoying online sales with demo videos by glamorous Bollywood actors and celebrities and more than 70 brick-and-mortar stores.
Nykaa which is the Sanskrit word for heroine, sells items including exfoliation creams, bridal make-up essentials and hundreds of shades of lipstick, foundation and nail colour to suit Indian skin tones, skin types and local weather.
In the year ending in March, Nykaa sales surged 35 per cent to $330 million. The company stands out as a rarity among the internet startups making a debut in the public markets and showing such huge profits.
Nayar owns her company stake through two family trusts and and seven other promoter entities. Her Ivy League-educated daughter and son, who run different Nykaa units, are among the promoters.
While Nayar is India’s richest self-made female billionaire, Savitri Jindal, who controls the OP Jindal Group conglomerate founded by her late husband, is the nation’s wealthiest woman.
Her fortune is valued at $12.9 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, a ranking of the world’s 500 richest people.
Unicorn debut
Nykaa’s IPO is one of the many consumer Internet companies making its debut this year amid a soaring stock market. .
Ahead of the IPO Nayar had said “we have a long way to go,” Nayar told Bloomberg . “Women – and even men – in the country of 1.3 billion people are just beginning to open their wallets to splurge on make-up and grooming products.
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