Cafe Coffee Day files for $181 million IPO

MUMBAI (Reuters) - The firm behind Cafe Coffee Day, India's biggest homegrown coffee chain, has filed a draft prospectus with regulators for an initial public offering (IPO) to raise as much as 11.5 billion rupees ($181 million). Kotak Mahindra Bank, Morgan Stanley and Citigroup are among the underwriters for the IPO, the draft prospectus said. India's biggest cafe operator opened its first shop in 1996 and has grown to more than 1,500 outlets as more young, urban consumers opt for cappuccino over tea and seek out spaces to socialise in overcrowded, traffic-congested cities. The application process with the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) could take two to three months, two bankers told Reuters, adding they expected the coffee chain to list within one to two months after that approval. The bankers declined to be identified as they are not authorised to speak to the media. Coffee Day Enterprises had consolidated debt of 28.64 billion rupees as of December 31, according to the draft prospectus. Of the IPO proceeds, the chain plans to use 6.33 billion rupees towards the repayment of debt, it said. ($1 = 63.5888 rupees) (Reporting by Nivedita Bhattacharjee and Abhishek Vishnoi; Editing by Clara Ferreira Marques and Pravin Char)