The initial public offering of the country's largest insurer LIC will open on May 4 and close on May 9, sources said. The IPO, through which the government will sell 3.5 per cent stake in state-owned Life Insurance Corporation (LIC), will fetch Rs 21,000 crore to the exchequer. The IPO values LIC at Rs 6 lakh crore.
Stock market investors became richer by a whopping Rs 77.66 lakh crore in 2024, helped by an overall optimistic trend in equities, where the BSE Sensex surged over 8 per cent. Analysts said the year witnessed a tug of war between the bulls and bears marked by volatility but, despite the uncertainties around the world, the Indian markets sustained the pressure and delivered impressive returns.
India is likely to see over 100 mature, large-scale profitable or on the path to profitability startups in the next five years, of which 80 have the potential to go for public listing, market research and consultancy firm Redseer said on Tuesday. Redseer Strategy Consultants, in a report on IPOs, said 20 of the mature startups have gone public so far. "India may see over 100 matured, large-scale profitable/path-to-profitability start-ups in the next five years.
The government will launch the mega public offer of LIC by March and file draft papers with market regulator Sebi by the end of this month, an official said. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had last week reviewed the progress of the initial public offering (IPO) of Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) in a meeting with top officials of the ministry. The official said the September 2021 quarter financials of LIC are getting finalised as well as fund bifurcation is in progress.
'Expect our food delivery business to deliver sustainable adjusted EBITDA margins of about 5 per cent in the medium term.'
The country's largest private sector lender HDFC Bank on Saturday said it will grow its loan book slower than the industry in the current financial year (FY25). The move comes as the lender looks to bring down its elevated credit - deposit (CD) ratio to pre-merger levels. "We will bring down the CD ratio faster than what we had anticipated.
'Health and motor insurance will continue to be our two most important segments'
Quarterly earnings of corporates, trading activity of foreign investors and inflation data are the key factors that are expected to drive the momentum in the equity markets this week, analysts said.
IPO-bound hospitality major Oyo's India Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Ankit Gupta and the head of its Europe business Mandar Vaidya have resigned. A company spokesperson told Business Standard that the two had moved on from their roles six months ago in March 2023. During the same period, Oyo had rejigged its top management, where the company's COO Abhinav Sinha was reassigned as Chief Product and Technology Officer, while Chief Business Development Officer Anuj Tejpal was reappointed as Global Chief Merchant Officer.
Foreign investors have poured Rs 57,359 crore into Indian equities in September, making it the highest inflow in nine months, mainly driven by a rate cut by the US Federal Reserve. With this infusion, foreign portfolio investors' (FPIs) investment in equities has surpassed the Rs 1 lakh crore mark in 2024, data with the depositories showed. Going ahead, FPI inflows are likely to remain robust, driven by global interest rate easing and India's strong fundamentals.
'I advise people to stay away from secondary IPOs. There is a big conflict of interest between the exiting and incoming investors'
Logistics services provider Delhivery is likely to launch its downsized initial public offering (IPO) this week, said people in the know. The Softbank-backed firm may trim its issue size from Rs 7,460 crore to Rs 5,500 crore to align with the volatile market conditions, sources said. Sources added the fresh issue component of the IPO could be reduced to Rs 4,500 crore and the OFS component to Rs 1,000 crore.
The National Stock Exchange of India (NSE), which is still awaiting regulatory approval for its initial public offering (IPO), is now planning to streamline the process of buying the unlisted stocks of the company, thereby reducing the time taken for such deals from about four months to just a week. The management of India's biggest stock exchange has affirmed that it is working to reduce the time taken. According to the analysts, certain approvals required at present from NSE for buying stocks, are adding to the processing time.
Ever since the Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) announced launching the initial public offering (IPO), 6.48 crore LIC policyholders have shown interest to get the much-touted share of the largest insurance company in the country, an official said. "The response to our IPO launch is wonderful. We have some figures: 6.48 crore policy holders have linked their PAN number with the policy details up to the cut-off date (February 28, 2022)," Rahul Jain, director of the Department of Investment and Public Asset Management (DIPAM) in the Ministry of Finance, told reporters. The LIC has set a price band of Rs 902-Rs 949 per equity share. The government intends to raise Rs 21,000 crore through the issue.
Reliance Industries Ltd, India's most valuable company, is back on a growth path after six months of challenges as it posted better than expected earnings in the December quarter, brokerages said.
Just 14 companies raised Rs 35,456 crore through main-board primary share sales in the first half of the fiscal, down 32 per cent from the year-ago period when 25 issues had mopped up Rs 51,979 crore. But according to Prime Database, the IPO pipeline is strong with 71 issues worth Rs 1,05,000 crore having Sebi approvals and another 43 worth about Rs 70,000 crore are awaiting approval. Of these 114 planned issues, 10 are new-age tech companies, which are looking to raise roughly Rs 35,000 crore.
Initial public offerings (IPOs) have attracted droves of retail investors to the stock market in CY22. But these applicants have lost money on 40 per cent of the fresh issues this year - a trend that may impact sentiment towards maiden share sales during the remaining part of the year. Of the 14 companies that have listed this year, five have closed below their issue price.
For food aggregator platform Swiggy, quick commerce (qcom) is proving to be a better growth opportunity than food delivery. Its qcom arm Instamart is rapidly outpacing its core food delivery vertical across several key financial metrics, the company's recently filed draft red herring prospectus (DRHP) shows.
The Tata Tech IPO will be the first from the Tata group since TCS listed its shares in 2004.
LIC's public offer, the country's biggest-ever IPO, witnessed full subscription of the retail portion on day three on Friday. The overall issue was subscribed 1.38 times, according to data posted on stock exchanges on 7 pm. Against 16,20,78,067 shares on offer, 22,36,98,915 bids were received. However, the Qualified Institutional Buyer (QIB) and Non-Institutional Investor (NII) portions are yet to be fully subscribed.
Global investors have cited the ongoing war and high valuations of Indian equity markets as a reason to skip the IPO.
The dealers operating in the space have jumped nearly three times over the past two years.
The board of Reliance Industries Ltd on Thursday approved issuing 1:1 bonus shares -- the first bonus issue in seven years. Reliance, the nation's most valuable company, had last issued bonus shares in September 2017.
FSN E-Commerce Ventures Ltd, which operates online beauty e-commerce platform Nykaa, on Monday said it has fixed a price band of Rs 1,085-1,125 per share for its initial public offer (IPO) that opens for subscription later this week. The IPO will open for subscription on October 28 and conclude on November 1. IPO comprises a fresh issue of equity shares aggregating up to Rs 630 crore (fresh issue) and an offer for sale of up to 41,972,660 equity shares being offered by the selling shareholders (offer for sale or OFS), a statement said.
Japan's Softbank investment arm Softbank Vision Fund exited from Paytm in the June quarter at a loss of around $150 million, sources aware of the development said. Softbank invested about $1.5 billion in One97 Communications -- the owner of Paytm brand -- in tranches in 2017. "Softbank has exited Paytm at a loss of 10-12 per cent.
'Opportunity is there in each segment of the market. There is opportunity in affordable and specifically governed by government initiatives as well as for housing for all.'
A Competition Commission probe has found that food delivery platforms Zomato and Swiggy indulged in unfair business practices, including alleged preferential treatment to some restaurant partners, according to sources. The detailed investigation was ordered by the Competition Commission of India (CCI) in April 2022 and the probe report was submitted to the regulator earlier this year. Under the norms, CCI director general's report has been shared with the parties concerned and later, they will be called for hearings by the watchdog.
Food delivery platform Zomato's initial public offering was oversubscribed on the opening day on Wednesday with retail investors bidding for 2.7 times the number of shares reserved for them. The offer received bids for 75.60 crore equity shares against an IPO size of 71.92 crore, stock exchange data showed. Retail investors sought 2.69 times the portion reserved for them. Against 12.95 crore shares reserved for retail individual investors, 34.88 crore shares were bid by 1700 hours.
Seven companies, including lifestyle retail brand FabIndia and specialty chemical company Aether Industries, have received capital markets regulator Sebi's go-ahead to raise funds through initial share sales. Syrma SGS Technology, Asianet Satellite Communications, Sanathan Textiles, Capillary Technologies India and Harsha Engineers International too received the watchdog's nod to float Initial Public Offerings (IPOs). These companies, which filed their preliminary IPO papers with Sebi during December 2021 and February 2022, obtained observations during April 27-30, an update with the regulator showed on Monday.
Paytm's Rs 18,300 crore IPO was oversubscribed 1.89 times on the last day of India's biggest share sale on Wednesday, making it one of the country's most valued companies. The initial public offering of Paytm's parent company One97 Communications Ltd received bids for 9.14 crore equity shares against the offer size of 4.83 crore shares, according to information available from stock exchanges. While the portion set aside for retail investors was oversubscribed early, institutional buyers including FIIs flooded the share sale with offers on Wednesday, seeking 2.79 times the number of shares reserved for them.
The government is expected to defer the mega initial public offering (IPO) of LIC to the next financial year as the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war has dampened fund managers' interest in the public issue, market experts said on Sunday. The government was looking to sell 5 per cent stake in Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) this month, which could have fetched over Rs 60,000 crore to the exchequer. The IPO would have helped meet the curtailed divestment target of Rs 78,000 crore this fiscal.
The Supreme Court on Thursday refused to grant any interim relief and stay the Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) IPO share allotment on a batch of pleas filed by some policy holders. A bench of Justices DY Chandrachud, Surya Kant and PS Narasimha said that the court should be reluctant to grant any interim relief in matters of commercial investments and IPO. "We are not inclined to grant any interim relief", the bench said as it issued notice to the Centre and LIC on the batch of pleas seeking their response within eight weeks.
The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) has mulled introduction of confidential initial public offering (IPO) filings and "pre-filing" of offer documents, a move aimed at giving issuers flexibility and alleviating concerns around privacy. Industry players said the concept, if implemented, would give a fillip to the domestic capital markets, ease the process and encourage more companies to go public. To be sure, the proposals are still at a discussion stage with Sebi just floating a consultation paper seeking public feedback.
The country's legacy two-wheeler giants - Bajaj Auto and TVS - are fighting a neck-and-neck battle for market share, with the former threatening to dislodging its rival soon. The Pune-based giant, which was trailing far behind TVS just two months ago in e-two-wheelers (e2Ws), has upped the ante. It has increased its market share based on Vahan registrations from 11.6 per cent in June (when it sold only 9,046 electric two wheelers) to 19.3 per cent (when it sold 14,977 this month till August 30).
'Had there been no war, maybe, we would come out with a 7.5 per cent stake sale.' 'At this point in time, a 3.5 per cent stake sale looked good.'
The three companies have been issued observations by the watchdog, according to the update on the processing status of draft offer documents as on October 8. An observation letter is mandatory for an initial share sale. In Sebi parlance, the issuance of observations implies its go-ahead for the IPO. One Mobikwik Systems Ltd is a leading mobile wallet (MobiKwik Wallet) and Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) player in India.
Markets regulator Sebi has kept in abeyance the processing of Go Airlines' draft papers for an initial public offer worth Rs 3,600 crore. Go Airlines (India) Ltd, which has announced rebranding itself as 'Go First', filed preliminary papers for an initial share sale worth Rs 3,600 crore in May. The proceeds will be mainly used to repay dues. The "issuance of observations (has been) kept in abeyance", according to Sebi's latest update on processing status of Go Airlines' draft offer documents. The information was updated on June 25. In Sebi parlance, issuance of observations implies its go-ahead for the IPO.
LIC's public offer, the country's biggest-ever IPO, saw the policyholders' portion being oversubscribed on the first day itself on Wednesday, though overall subscription stood at just 66 per cent. The government aims to generate about Rs 21,000 crore by selling 3.5 per cent stake in the insurance behemoth. The LIC initial public offering (IPO), open for retail and institutional investors, is set to close on May 9. The issue period also includes bidding on Saturday, May 7.
Equity supply may hit Rs 6 trillion soon.
The government is likely to take a call on the timing of LIC initial public offering within this week, a senior official said. The sale of 5 per cent stake or 31.6 crore shares in the country's largest insurer was originally planned for in March, but was postponed in view of the geopolitical tension. The government has time till May 12 to launch the IPO without filing fresh papers with markets regulator Sebi. The official said it would be a tough call to decide whether to go ahead with the retail and domestic investor demand or to wait for geopolitical tension to ease and FIIs to return to market.