The share price of India’s first listed e-commerce firm Infibeam Avenues Ltd, fell more than 70 percent on Friday.

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The crash was led by a WhatsApp message being circulated among traders, raising concerns about the accounting policies of the company, the extending interest-free loans to non-profitable subsidiaries and the promoters selling their stakes in the company.

The rumour eroded Rs 9,200 crores worth of market capitalisation in just one day.

The stock further fell down on Monday, dropping below its issue price. However, it recovered later and was trading at 18 percent above its Friday closing.

The free fall led to the company releasing a clarification to stock exchanges saying that there was no pending information or announcement that may impact its share price.

A separate clarification, released by the company after the market closing hours, stated that the company had lent to NSI lnfinium Global Pvt, the company’s subsidiary which is not yet profitable and has negative net worth. However, the subsidiary has shown improvement in its performance in the past two financial years.

The statement also clarified that no promoters were selling their stake in the company as alleged in the WhatsApp message.

The company has also complained to the government and Securities and Exchange Board of India about the circulated WhatsApp message and has asked the authorities to take steps against the same.

According to the company’s annual report 2017-18, Infibeam has given unsecured, interest-free loans of around Rs 134 crore to its wholly-owned subsidiary NSI lnfinium Global Pvt. Ltd, which owns and operates flagship portal www.infibeam.com.

NSI Infinium recorded a turnover of Rs 284.7 crore during 2017-18 and posted a net profit of Rs 16.57 crores. The company has negative net worth of Rs 29.4 crores. Infibeam Avenues earns 36 percent of its total revenue from its e-commerce portal, run by NSI Infinium.

Overall, the company has recorded a total income of Rs 839.3 crores, up 90 percent from Rs 441.3 in the previous fiscal. The net profit has also more than doubled to Rs 88.14 crores. The top line of the company has gone up three times since 2014-15.

The growth in the company’s revenues and profits were driven by the growth in the web-services segment since the company merged the digital payment segment - CCAvenue with the parent company. The web services segment grew more than two times during 2017-18. However, the products division recorded a flat growth of around 6 percent during 2017-18.

Infibeam was founded by a former Amazon executive, Vishal Mehta in 2010. The company was listed in March 2016, one of the youngest companies to get listed in India.

First Published:Oct 1, 2018 4:08 PM IST