Insipid, pedestrian, nondescript, stale, pallid, limp.
Choose your word – each one neatly sums up the general state of India’s pre-Covid capital markets.
Year after year, the market underwhelmed. While the likes of the US and China created stock offerings as if they were churning milk, India was a perennial laggard. It was the land where IPOs were always smaller than expected, and where investment banking fees went to die.
How quickly things can change. In the year to August 6, only the US has generated more fresh capital via onshore IPOs: companies completed 189 new share listings in Mumbai in that period, raising $5.8 billion, according to data from Dealogic.
The same is true in equity capital markets, where India again ranks second, behind the US and ahead of Japan, the UK, Saudi Arabia and China, with firms collectively raising $32.6 billion in the year to August 6. Every part of the business is booming: so far this year, issuers have raised a cool $16 billion via 71 block trades, already surpassing 2023’s full-year record of $14.5 billion raised via 67 issuances.
Little wonder every investment bank was so eager to chat when Euromoney visited Mumbai in July.
Citi,
