Why Did Paytm's IPO Fail?
India's Biggest IPO Fell 75% — Priced for a Story, Not a Business
📜 What Happened
Paytm raised ₹18,300 crore in India's biggest-ever IPO (2021), priced at ₹2,150 per share on the story of India's fintech revolution. The prospectus itself showed years of losses with no stated path to profit, brutal competition from free UPI payments, and a business pivoting every few quarters. The stock fell 27% on DAY ONE — the worst big-IPO debut in Indian history — and kept falling, down ~75% within a year. Retail investors who bought the brand's fame, not the filings, carried the loss.
☠️ The Fatal Mistake
Pricing (and buying) a household name at story-multiples while the documents underneath described an unprofitable business in a price war.
🧠 The Lesson (Free for You)
Familiarity is not analysis. A great app you use daily can still be a terrible stock at the wrong price — the prospectus is boring precisely because that's where the truth is kept.
📕 The Antidote Book
Graham — Buffett's teacher and the father of security analysis — built the intellectual foundation of rational investing on a handful of unbreakable ideas: an INVESTMENT operation promises safety of principal and…
📖 OPEN THE FULL INTERACTIVE BREAKDOWN →Searchable, filterable, free to read — they paid billions; your lesson is free.