In the age of Tinder, Matrimony.com IPO can be avoided

woh sharmaji ki beti bhaag gayi college ke ladke ke sath (Mr. Sharma’s daughter ran away with a college friend) used to be the talk of the town(literally) a few years back. It was a time when the conservative Indian society took marriages too seriously and marriages were a matter of Khandaan ki ijjat (reputation of the family/pedigree).

Marriages were made in heaven but the deals were made within the closed community rules and “guidelines”. There was always that Kanpur wali bua (Paternal aunt) who knew the in and out of every girl and boy of the caste and could tell which relation could be right swiped provided the kundali or horoscope indicate that its a match.

Now the rules have changed. The younger sibling of the Sharmaji ki beti is now marrying his office colleague who happens to be Guptaji’s beti. Interestingly, Sharmaji and Guptaji hail from different communities but are now cool with the alliance.

Times are changing and this is clearly the age of Tinder and not Matrimony. According to some reports, over a million swipes happen on Tinder every minute. The Great Indian Millenials has Tinder among the must-have apps installed on their mobile and there is no looking back. An Indian matrimonial company Matrimony.com

An Indian matrimonial company Matrimony.com is coming with an IPO during these times.

This is the season of IPO. Indian markets are flooded with many IPOs and we are gearing up to invest more money in the stock markets. The forever falling of interest rates in the achedin era has prompted many people to open the strings of their wallet and go on a shopping spree on the stock markets. IPOs and SIPs are obvious options luring desi investors. But not all investment opportunities are created equal.

While most IPOs listed recently have given good returns but there are a few which have given negative returns to the investors. Some recent IPOs which are trading lower than the IPO price include S Chand (almost 30% down), GTPL Hathway (20% down), CL Educate (33% down). One of the reasons for these companies to show negative returns is that they are into old model and nothing much innovation seems to be on the cards. The same can be viewed with Matrimony.

While the stock can show a good return on investment for a while, it may not be a good long-term bet considering that Matrimony also works on the old model. Add to that there are threats from many new entrants, one of which may disrupt the whole market as in the case of many online businesses.

Happy investing.