Ola and Anant Raj send out opposite signals. Which one would you follow?

December 18, 2025

“Why does a founder sell at a low point in his life?”

That’s what I wondered when I saw Ola back in the headlines – not because of a product launch or a turnaround story.

This time it’s about the founder, Bhavish Aggarwal, selling some of his personal assets. The sale will help release 3.93% of the pledged shares and fully repay a promoter-level loan of Rs 2.6 billion.

Let me be clear at the outset. I have nothing against promoters monetizing small portions of their stakes over time. Insider selling is not a crime, nor is it always a red flag.

There are plenty of examples where founders sold shares and the shares continued to create enormous wealth. Page Industries is a classic case: multiple rounds of insider selling and yet a long journey as a multibagger.

Why did the market shrink this time?

It was the timing.

Ola’s shares are trading near lifetime lows. And that makes the difference.

A little over a year ago, Ola, which was making losses then (and is still making losses now), came to the market with an IPO at Rs 76 per share. When asked about the valuation, Agarwal confidently said the issue was cheaply priced, leaving money on the table so that public investors could be excited about the opportunity.

Fast forward to today. The same promoter is selling shares at a discount of more than 50% to the IPO price.

Correction aside, that earlier statement rings hollow in light of the promoter’s sale.

I’ve said this before and I don’t mind repeating it. IPOs often offer the worst deals for retail investors. Especially when promoters use the for sale route to sell their own shares. Yet every bull market brings with it a strange obsession with the next hot list.

This reminds me of a tweet from market veteran Shankar Sharma that I completely agree with: “This bull market will go down in Indian history as the largest money transfer from rich to poor.”

He is blunt and right. Most IPOs are not wealth creation events. They are wealth-winning events.

Think about the structure of an IPO. On one side of the table sit insiders – promoters and early investors, selling part of their stake. On the other side is the private investor, who often buys the story at the most polished moment.

Seasoned investors do the opposite. They wait. They observe. And instead of tracking insider sales, they track insider purchases. They prefer to ride alongside promoters when promoters put their own money back into the company.

As Peter Lynch put it so simply: Insiders sell for many reasons, but buy for only one reason. They think the stock will rise.

That one insight can make a world of difference for long-term results in the market.

The recent correction has been particularly brutal for loss-making companies that helped drive the growth story. For many of them, no correction is deep enough unless you consciously play in the speculative zone.

But here’s the other side of the story.

Corrections don’t just destroy value. They create it too.

Quietly in the background, better prices have emerged in profitable companies. Prices that insiders themselves find attractive enough to deploy their personal capital on the open market.

An example of this from December is Anant Raj, who sends a signal completely opposite to Ola.

This is a real estate development and construction company where promoters have invested over Rs 108 million of their personal money this month by buying shares from the open market at an average price of around Rs 507.

That is close to the current market price, and specifically well below the QIP price of Rs 662 that institutional and savvy investors themselves paid for a stock this quarter.

Today, the company is virtually debt-free and has reported growth across key financial metrics. Add to this the powerful tailwinds of India’s expanding data center ecosystem – an opportunity that Anant Raj is already capitalizing on. And you have a company worth keeping an eye on.

This is not a recommendation. Think of it as a watchlist idea, rooted in one simple principle: pay attention to what insiders are doing with their own money.

Remember: prices talk, stories shout, but the insider money whispers the truth.

So, when the next big story happens, which signal do you choose to follow: the story or the insider money?

I’d love to hear from you. Share your opinion here.

Kind regards,

Richa Agarwal
Editor and research analyst, Hidden gem
Quantum Information Services Private Limited (Research Analyst)