Antivirus software firm Quick Heal files for IPO

Anti-virus software maker Quick Heal Technologies Ltd, which is backed by Sequoia Capital, has filed its draft herring prospectus with the capital markets regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India for its initial public offering.

Here's a snapshot of the IPO

* The IPO comprises a fresh issue of shares to raise up to Rs 250 crore (about $38 million) and an offer for sale of up to 6.8 million equity shares by promoters and Sequoia Capital.

* Bankers: ICICI Securities, Jefferies and JPMorgan.

Use of proceeds

* Of the proceeds of the fresh issue, around Rs 111 crore would be used for advertising and sales promotion, Rs 41.8 crore on capital expenditure for research and development, Rs 30.1 crore to buy, develop and renovate office premises in Chennai, Kolkata, Pune and New Delhi, and remaining for general corporate purposes.

Company

* The Pune-based company was co-founded by brothers Kailash (CEO and CMD) and Sanjay Katkar (CTO and technical director) in 1991.

* Initially called CAT Computer Services Pvt Ltd, the company later transformed from being a computer maintenance firm to an IT security solutions provider. It was rechristened as Quick Heal in 2007.

* The company develops anti-virus software and has 65 offices in 37 cities across India, the UAE, Japan, Kenya and the US. A little over 2 per cent of its revenues come from outside India. It recently entered into a preliminary term sheet to form a new joint venture to distribute, sell and market its offerings in South Africa.

* Last year it introduced a separate 'Seqrite' range of solutions especially aimed at small and medium businesses and enterprise customers.

* More than 24.5 million licences of its products have been installed as on June 30, 2015. It had over 6.9 million active licences spread across more than 80 countries, compared with 2.5 million as of March 31, 2011. It had more than 1.1 million active licences for its mobile solutions.

* The company sells its solutions directly and through distributors, whom it refers to as channel partners.

* As of June 30, 2015, it had a network of over 15,000 retail channel partners, 230 enterprise channel partners, 279 government partners and 577 mobile channel partners.

* The company had 1,231 employees, including 449 who are part of its R&D team, as of June 30, 2015.

* The company has recently entered into a preliminary term sheet to invest up to Rs 6 crore in a firm that is developing home automation technology. The company has not disclosed the name of the target firm.

Financials

* For the fiscal year 2015, the company reported net revenue of Rs 286 crore, EBITDA of Rs 100 crore and net profit of Rs 53.8 crore.

* The debt-free firm has, however, seen both its operating and net margins shrink over the last three years. Indeed, even the actual EBITDA and net profit of the firm has declined for the last two years after hitting a high in FY13. This is partly to do with higher operational and employee benefit expenses.

Investors

* The company had raised Rs 36 crore from Sequoia Capital back in 2010. Sequoia had separately also bought shares worth Rs 24 crore from the promoters of the firm. The VC firm owns a 10.25 per cent stake in the company and is selling less than half of it in the IPO.