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National Stock Exchange of India (NSE) shares rose on their first day of trading on Thursday, September 24. The stock opened on the BSE at Rs. 1,800, above its IPO price of Rs. 1,785, and later reached Rs. 1,878. The debut followed a listing effort that began in 2016 and faced years of regulatory and legal delays.
NSE shares opened 0.84% above the issue price. They later traded as high as Rs. 1,878, providing a 5.21% gain over the initial price. At the day’s high, NSE’s market capitalization stood at about Rs. 4.64 lakh crore, nearly Rs. 22,000 crore above its estimated value at the issue price.
At 11:04 a.m., NSE traded at Rs. 1,839 and had a market value of about Rs. 4.56 lakh crore. This placed it among the world’s 10 largest listed exchanges and India’s 10 most valuable listed companies at the time. Rival exchange BSE, which listed in 2017, had a market value of about Rs. 1.32 lakh crore.
NSE’s debut also differed from those of several other large Indian IPOs. Hyundai Motor India fell more than 7% on its first trading day in 2024, while Life Insurance Corporation of India dropped nearly 8% in 2022. Paytm shares lost more than 27% on their 2021 debut.
NSE’s Rs. 22,560-crore IPO, worth about USD 2.4 billion, was the country’s second-largest, after Hyundai Motor India’s offering. The sale drew bids for 505.81 million shares against 88.64 million available in the public portion. Overall demand reached about 5.7 times the shares offered, led by institutional and other large investors.
Before the public offer, NSE allotted 37.79 million shares to anchor investors at Rs. 1,785 each, raising Rs. 6,746 crore. Existing shareholders sold shares through the IPO, and NSE received no new capital from the sale. Retail investors bid for only slightly more shares than their reserved portion.
NSE first filed for an IPO in 2016. Regulatory disputes and legal proceedings delayed the listing for years. The recent tighter rules for derivatives trading and lower trading volumes pushed the exchange to reduce the offer size and lower its IPO price.
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Deven Choksey, managing director of DRChoksey Finserv, called NSE a ‘deep value’ investment in comments to Business Today Television. He pointed to the nature of the exchange business, the trading activity on established platforms and the potential for new products. “The exchange business is exclusive. It’s not a common business,” he said.
Choksey suggested that investors who missed an IPO allotment buy shares gradually and hold them for three to five years. He also said NSE’s business could benefit if India’s total stock market value rises over the next decade. That growth remains his projection.
VK Vijayakumar, chief investment strategist at Geojit Investments, also discussed the stock’s price. He said NSE could offer a long-term opportunity ‘if the NSE stock becomes available in today’s trade at a fair price.’
