Plans for Telegram IPO in doubt as FT reveals messaging app lost €156m in 2023

Messaging app Telegram’s total losses in 2023 stood at around €156 million after tax, The Financial Times reported on Friday, referring to an unpublished company report that it obtained.

Although Telegram does not publish its financial reports, the FT was able to learn that its financial losses were partially offset by an appreciation of its digital assets, which were worth nearly €360 million in 2023.

Analysts who spoke with the FT said that French legal proceedings against the company’s founder and CEO Pavel Durov could jeopardise Telegram’s plans for an initial public offering (IPO) within the next two years. In March Durov said that investors had valued the company at $30 billion (€27 billion) and that he was considering an IPO.

Durov, who was arrested on Saturday evening upon arrival at Le Bourget Airport in Paris, was indicted on multiple criminal charges by the French Prosecutor General’s Office on Wednesday evening. He has since then been released on a €5 million bail bond and placed under judicial supervision.

“Would investors buy into an IPO if they are not sure if Telegram is a pariah?” asked one bondholder who spoke with the FT, “I am not sure. Bond investors would face a similar dilemma,” adding that he had heard nothing from Telegram’s management since the news of Durov’s arrest broke last weekend.

Indeed, social media expert and University of Zurich researcher Aleksandra Urman told the FT that the app’s centralised leadership style had raised questions over whether Telegram could “exist without Pavel”.

Durov currently owns Telegram outright, according to the FT, and the company has yet to comment on whether he plans to continue the day-to-day management of the company himself following his indictment, or hand it over to a management team.