Indian stationery giants Flair, DOMS look to write IPO success stories

On 18 July, Flair Writing Industries filed its draft red herring prospectus (DRHP) for a Rs 745 crore initial public offering (IPO). According to the DRHP, the Mumbai-based pen manufacturer’s listing would comprise a fresh issue of equity shares worth Rs 365 crore and an offer for sale (OFS) of up to Rs 380 crore.

Just over a month later, its Gujarat-based stationery peer DOMS filed its own DRHP. Its DRHP states that the company plans to raise Rs 350 crore from the public markets, while its promoters would offload stakes worth Rs 850 crore. The total offer size, therefore, would comfortably eclipse that of Flair.  

The timing of their announcements was almost poetic, given that the two brands both trace their origins back to the mid-1970s on India’s western coast. While the Flair brand was launched in Mumbai in 1976, DOMS’s story begins in 1975 with Gujarat-based RR Industries—a pencil manufacturer for the big stationery brands of the time. The DOMS brand itself was only launched three decades later in 2005 by Santosh Raveshia—son of RR Industries co-founder Rasikbhai Raveshia.