‘It is a rite of passage to have the stamp of a listed co’

NEW DELHI: Low-cost airline IndiGo, set to hit the market on Tuesday with its IPO, raised `832 crore from anchor investors on Monday. The issue, touted as the biggest in three years, has created a stir. Rakesh Gangwal, the promoter of Interglobe Aviation (which operates IndiGo airline), tells HT why going public is important. Excerpts.

Jack Ma regrets taking Alibaba pubic. Michael Dell appears ecstatic his company is no longer public. Why are you taking Interglobe Aviation public?

We struggled with it. Staying private allows you to make decisions fast. Your concern is not the financial loss but long-term vision and making big bets. Once you have a lot of shareholders, the responsibility is higher, and you become a tad more conservative. We have $50 billion worth of airplanes, at list price, coming to us. We are starting sale and lease back. Today we have a great relationship with Airbus and lessors. But lessors consider a privately-held company a bit of a risk. It is a rite of passage when you get the stamp of a listed company. We think we can push our lessors to reduce the lease cost just a little bit more.

Qatar Airways is said to be wooing you. Don’t you want a strategic investor?

No, they will want to run it their way.

Only 70 million Indians flew last year. That is a fourth of the Chinese market.

India has to build and open new airports. Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, and Chennai need one more airport. The taxation needs to change. This is not the upper crust flying.

There has been concern over your declaring a hefty dividend just before the IPO. It put your net worth in the negative for a brief while. Any second thoughts?

No second thoughts. Someone said that had we paid $20 million less, we would be in the positive column (of net worth). You probably don’t want to create an optics issue. But it does not change anything.