BENGALURU: Oyo Hotels, the once high-flying Indian startup, is reviving plans for a stock-market debut after cost cuts and a recovery in travel helped it reduce losses.

The hotel-booking company filed fresh financial documents yesterday and is now targeting an initial public offering (IPO) in early 2023 provided that India’s stock market continues to hold up and economic conditions improve, according to people familiar with the matter.

Oyo, formally known as Oravel Stays Ltd, is internally working toward a January IPO as executives are encouraged by a pick-up in demand, they said, asking not to be named discussing confidential plans.

Oyo had filed preliminary IPO documents in 2021, only to shelve the listing plan earlier this year after the prolonged pandemic hurt its growth and forced the company to cut thousands of jobs.

It disclosed its latest financials in an IPO filing addendum yesterday, with the numbers showing narrower losses and a rebound in sales for the year through March 2022 and the following three months.

The startup is now focusing on four main regions: India, Malaysia, Indonesia and Europe, where it manages vacation homes. It has cut down operations in markets it previously considered crucial, such as the United States and China, where its employees now measure in the single digits, one of the people said.

Oyo, valued at US$9bil according to researcher CB Insights, may have trouble attaining that level, given rapidly eroding investor sentiment.

But the company appeared determined to rein in costs and improve the bottom line, which would appeal to markets, said Manav Thadani, co-founder and chairman of hospitality industry consultancy Hotelivate.

“Nobody expected the turnaround after a series of Covid-related challenges to be so quick and so robust,” Thadani said. “It’s good to see it has given up expansion in China and the United States and is now targeting niche markets. It is focusing on performance.”

Oyo and founder Ritesh Agarwal are trying to pull off a successful IPO after a series of setbacks in their efforts to change the hotel and lodging industry.

SoftBank Group Corp founder Masayoshi Son was an early and enthusiastic backer, and the Japanese conglomerate holds about 47% in the Gurgaon-based startup.

The 28-year-old Agarwal owns about one third. The revived listing plan also underscored how India’s stock market is bucking the trend of globally declining tech stocks.

Accelerating inflation, lingering Covid-19 infections and the war in Ukraine have sent the tech-heavy Nasdaq index down 27% this year.

Meanwhile, India’s benchmark NSE Nifty 50 index is up 1%. Oyo reported a loss of 18.9 billion rupees (US$237mil or RM1.08bil) for the year through March 2022, nearly halving from the previous 12 months.

The numbers were restated from previously undisclosed figures and included in the IPO document addendum made available by its bankers. The annual loss before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation shrank to 4.8 billion rupees from 18.7 billion rupees .

For the three months through June 2022, earnings on that basis were 105.75 million rupees , while the net loss was 3.5 billion rupees .

Revenue from contracts with customers for the fiscal year through March 2022 increased 21% to 47.8 billion rupees , with travel picking up as the pandemic eased.

 -Bloomberg