Bangalore: “A Microlending Star Moves On” read a headline in today’s issue of The Wall Street Journal.The report talked about the resignation of Vikram Akula, one of the best-known figures in microfinance, from the company he founded – SKS Microfinance.

Akula founded SKS in 1998 and guided it to a stock-market listing in August last year that raised 16.5 billion.

As per the latest available data, SKS has 7.7 million clients in over 2,400 branches in 19 states across India (with a large proportion coming from Andhra Pradesh). SKS charges an annual effective interest rate between 26 percent and 31percent for core loan products.

Well, those were some data points about the business of the company. Talking about the stock’s performance since its listing, here is a chart that bares it all.

If you had invested 100 in SKS when the shares were listed in August 2010, you would be ruing at your decision. This is given that your investment of Rs 100 would’ve stood 89 percent down, or at just 11 currently.

So much for the hype that surrounded the IPO last year, which was oversubscribed 13.6 times!

The successful IPO was indeed seen as a landmark, given the novelty of SKS’s business – it was the first micro-lender in India to get listed and was thought of as the torch bearer for other such lenders.

Anyways, as they say, the rest is history. But then, history is a good teacher.

There are some lessons that investors can learn from the rise and fall of SKS – the business and the stock.