Bhavish Aggarwal tops up Ola Electric share pledges as stock hits record low
Falling market share and lower revenue have pushed the promoter to pledge more shares for private AI venture.
NEW DELHI: Ola Electric Mobility founder and chairman Bhavish Aggarwal has pledged an additional 3% of his stake in the listed electric two-wheeler company to top up collateral against loans taken, as the stock continues to slide. Shares hit an all-time low of ₹33.20 per share on 9 December.
According to shareholding data reviewed by Mint, Aggarwal created two more pledges in December, bringing the total pledged portion to 13% of his entire stake. Aggarwal holds 30.02% in Ola Electric.
The total value of pledged shares is about ₹600 crore against the Ola Electric's total market capitalization of ₹15,280 crore.
Aggarwal has pledged the shares to Aditya Birla Capital Ltd and Axis Trustee Services Ltd, the same lenders he had previously approached for financing his privately held artificial intelligence (AI) venture, Krutrim. Since Ola Electric went public in August 2024, this is the fourth instance in which he has used his stake to fund the venture.
Pledging shares involves using stock as collateral for loans, with lenders entitled to transfer the shares if the loans are not repaid. Promoters such as those at Vedanta have previously pledged entire stakes to raise funding for ventures. Promoters typically must top up pledges as the value of the collateral falls. None of Aggarwal’s pledges has been invoked so far.
Queries sent to Ola Electric earlier today remained unanswered till press time.
Over the past month, Ola Electric’s shares have fallen about 22%, even as the Nifty Auto index gained 2%. The slide comes amid a sharp erosion in the company’s electric two-wheeler market share, which dropped to 7% in November, down from more than 50% at one point in 2024.
In the past month, Ola Electric shares have dropped around 22%, even as the Nifty Auto index rose 2%. The decline follows a sharp fall in the company’s market share in the electric two-wheeler segment, which fell to 7% in November, a steep fall compared to more than 50% at one point in 2024.
The stock has also come under pressure after the company lowered its full-year revenue guidance from ₹4,200-4,700 crore to ₹3,000-3,200 crore, citing weak sales. Revenue fell for the fourth consecutive quarter in July-September, down 43% to ₹690 crore, while losses narrowed to ₹418 crore from ₹495 crore a year ago.
“As the stock price keeps decreasing, there will be more margin calls and increasing pledges. And that will spiral into a concern," said Shriram Subramanian, founder at proxy advisory firm InGovern Research Services.
Promoter stakes
Promoters hold 36.78% of Ola Electric shares, which includes Aggarwal's 30.02%, ANI Technologies Private Ltd (parent company of Ola Consumer) holding 3.64%, and Indus Trust, with Aggarwal’s brother Ankush as trustee, holding 3.12%. SoftBank is the next largest shareholder, with about 14.70% at the end of the July–September quarter.
According to the company’s exchange disclosures, the first pledge with Axis Trustee was created on 4 December 2024 and a second on 25 February 2025, when Ola’s shares closed at ₹98.36 and ₹59.37, respectively.
For Aditya Birla Capital, the pledge was created on 26 August 2024 at a closing price of ₹50.82. By the end of trading on 9 December 2025, the stock had fallen to ₹34.71, a decline of 31-64% compared with the pledge creation prices.
While share pledging is common, analysts caution that pledging to fund a privately held venture exposes public shareholders to additional risks.
“The benefits of pledging shares to raise money to grow the business of a listed company accrue to all the shareholders. However, if this happens for a privately held firm, then the shareholders have to bear the risk of that privately held business not performing well, and the lenders enforcing the pledge," Subramanian of InGovern Research Services, had told Mint earlier.
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