STOCKHOLM (Reuters) -Swedish mobile phone directory and caller identification service Truecaller on Wednesday said it planned to list its Class B shares on Nasdaq Stockholm.
Depending on market conditions, the listing is expected to be completed during the fourth quarter of this year, the company said in a statement.
Nami Zarringhalam and Alan Mamedi, who co-founded Truecaller in 2009, intends to control a majority of the company’s voting power through ownership of Class A shares.
Many tech founders use dual-class shares to retain control of their companies after listing on public markets to operate on their long-term vision and safeguard from hostile takeovers.
However, critics argue that limited voting rights can lead to insular boards and poor corporate oversight.
“We have had great support from shareholders to apply this,” CEO Mamedi said in an interview.
Truecaller counts Sequoia, Atomico, OpenOcean and Kleiner Perkins among its investors, and more than 10% of the company was owned by its employees.
Mamedi declined to give the ratio of voting rights between both classes of shares.
The company has about 280 million monthly active users and counts India as its biggest market.
Truecaller plans to use gross proceeds of about 1 billion Swedish crowns ($116.08 million) to growing its business in existing markets and entering new ones.
“In some of the Western markets like the U.S. we have seen good traction and we believe that over time those markets will become more interesting for us and we have already started some investments into these markets,” Mamedi said.
($1 = 8.6144 Swedish crowns)
Reporting by Supantha Mukherjee in Stockholm; Editing by Rashmi Aich and Louise Heavens
Source: Reuters