The shares of Ola Electric Mobility plunged steeply over 8% this morning, down 43% from its post-listing peak, as complaints about its flagship electric two-wheelers kept flooding social media. This is the third straight session the EV maker declined.

The latest Ola stock crash comes after a public spat between founder Bhavish Aggarwal and comedian Kunal Kamra after the latter flagged the situation of its service centres.

Mr Kamra had called out Mr Aggarwal for not responding to the situation while the irked Ola founder started slamming the comedian over “failed comedy career” and “flop shows”.

Mr Aggarwal said it was a “paid tweet” by Mr Kamra, and he should either help them or “sit quiet”.

The spat took an ugly turn with him inviting Mr Kamra to an Ola service station for work and offering him better pay than his shows while Mr Kamra kept pressing for him for 100% refund to aggrieved Ola customers.

The argument divided the social media with many finding it wrong to go after the wealth creators. Another section, however, found it distasteful for a company executive to engage in such spats while his firm was fighting a crisis.

A social media user called it “peak arrogance” of Mr Aggarwal for trolling a comedian while his company was facing the customers’ wrath over delayed servicing.

“Ola EV Customers in Karnataka setting Ola Showroom on fire for not servicing their vehicle since month meanwhile their CEO Bhavish Aggarwal is busy trolling Kunal Kamra for bringing facts in public, Peak Arrogance,” the user said.

Ola Electric debuted in the share market two months ago. Government data suggests the company recorded its lowest monthly sales in September this year as servicing network challenges threaten its market dominance.

The company sold 23,965 vehicles in September – recording a month-on-month decline in sales amid complaints over the malfunctioning hardware and glitching software in some of its EV scooters.

Electric two-wheeler company Ola Electric Mobility’s proposed ₹5,500 crore IPO has received the go-ahead from Sebi, paving the way for the company to tap the market with a significant part of the proceeds to be used on capacity expansion of its cell manufacturing plant and revving up R&D.

Ola Electric as well as Bain Capital-backed Emcure Pharmaceuticals received Sebi’s approval to raise funds through initial public offerings (IPOs), an update with the markets regulator showed on Thursday.

The two companies, which filed their preliminary IPO papers with Sebi in December 2023, obtained observations on June 10, it added. In Sebi’s parlance, its observations means its go-ahead to float the public issue.

Ola Electric’s proposed IPO is a combination of a fresh issue of equity shares up to ₹5,500 crore and an offer for sale (OFS) of 9.52 crore equity shares by promoters and investors, according to the draft red herring prospectus (DRHP).

For Ola Electric, the IPO will provide the much-needed impetus to invest in enhancing cell manufacturing capacity and research and development on future technologies and products.

According to its draft papers, Ola Electric Mobility Ltd (OEML) plans to utilise ₹1,226.43 crore out of the proceeds of its ₹5,500 crore public issue on capacity expansion of its cell manufacturing plant to 6.4 GWh from 5 GWh.

The company is also looking to use ₹1,600 crore from the fresh fund on research and product development, while another ₹800 crore will be deployed to repay debts.

In its DRHP, OEML said the Phase 1 (a) and Phase 1 (b) of the set up and expansion of the Ola Gigafactory at Krishnagiri district in Tamil Nadu will be funded from internal accruals and long-term borrowings availed by its arm Ola Cell Technologies Pvt Ltd (OCT).

The Phase 1 (a) is expected to be completed by March 2024 and the gigafactory will have a capacity of 1.4 GWh. In the Phase 1 (b), the capacity will be increased to 5 GWh by October 2024. These will be funded from internal accruals and long-term borrowings availed by OCT, it said.

The Phase 2 of the expansion envisions scaling up the capacity to 6.4 GWh by April 2025 and take it up to 20 GWh by second quarter of calendar year 2026.

In the details of the objects of the IPO, the company said a portion of the proceeds will be used for capital expenditure to be incurred by OCT for expansion of the capacity of cell manufacturing plant from 5 GWh to 6.4 GWh.

“A portion of the net proceeds from the fresh issue aggregating to ₹1,226.43 crore shall be utilised for funding the project,” it said, adding, that the boards of OCT and the company pursuant to their resolutions each dated December 22, 2023, have consented and taken note of the allocation.

OEML which had on August 15, 2023, announced a line-up of electric motorcycles— Cruiser, Adventure, Roadster and Diamondhead— and expects to begin delivery of the motorcycles in the first half of fiscal 2026.

On future product launch plans, the company said, “We plan to further launch affordable mass market Ola S1 models, including E2Ws (electric two-wheelers) targeted at the personal, business-to-business and last-mile delivery segment by first half of fiscal 2025.”

It further said, “We also plan to commence delivery of our motorcycles, which we announced on August 15, 2023, by the first half of fiscal 2026. We plan to further expand our product portfolio to also cover mass market motorcycles to capture a broader base of consumers across different product types and price points in the long run.”

On Emcure Pharmaceuticals, the company’s proposed IPO is a combination of fresh issuance of equity shares worth ₹800 crore and an OFS of 1.36 crore equity shares by promoters and existing shareholders, as per the draft red herring prospectus.

Those selling shares in the OFS include promoter Satish Mehta and investor BC Investments IV Ltd, an affiliate of US-based private equity major Bain Capital.

Currently, Satish Mehta holds a 41.92% stake in the company and BC Investments owns a 13.09% stake.

Proceeds of the fresh issue will be used towards payment of debt and for general corporate purposes.