The National Stock Exchange (NSE) attracted an amount of ₹6,746 crore from anchor investors, including the state-owned Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC), Goldman Sachs, and Fidelity, just before the subscription for the highly anticipated Initial Public Offering (IPO).
Furthermore, sovereign wealth funds such as GIC Singapore, Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA), and Norges Bank, along with Eastspring and HSBC Global Asset Management, participated in the preliminary round.
According to a circular published on the BSE website, NSE allocated over 3.77 crore shares to 150 anchor investors at a price of ₹1,785 per share, which corresponds to the upper limit of its IPO price band. The total volume of this deal amounted to ₹6,746.2 crore.
Foreign Portfolio Investors (FPIs) accounted for about 43 percent of the preliminary book volume, investing ₹2,883 crore. More than 20 foreign funds participated in this, including investors from the USA, Europe, and Asia, representing sovereign wealth funds, regional long-only funds, and global mutual funds.
Participation from domestic institutional players was also extensive: mutual funds, insurance companies, pension funds, and other institutions contributed about ₹3,588 crore, making up 53 percent of the preliminary book volume. Participating mutual funds included ICICI Prudential Mutual Fund, HDFC Mutual Fund, Nippon India Mutual Fund, Axis Mutual Fund, Aditya Birla Sun Life Mutual Fund, Kotak Mutual Fund, UTI Mutual Fund, Mirae Asset Mutual Fund, Tata Mutual Fund, Franklin Templeton, Edelweiss Mutual Fund, and HSBC Mutual Fund.
LIC, the largest shareholder in NSE with a 10.72 percent stake, participated through three entities—LIC, LIC Mutual Fund, and LIC Pension Fund—investing over ₹500 crore. NSE is among the top five largest shareholders of LIC, and the exchange's existing stake in LIC exceeds the portion being offered in the IPO.
The SBI Group, selling 1 percent of NSE shares through State Bank of India and SBI Capital Markets, also participated in the preliminary book via SBI Mutual Fund, SBI General Insurance, SBI Life Insurance, and SBI Pension Fund, investing over ₹400 crore.
This strong institutional response precedes the NSE IPO worth ₹22,569 crore, for which the exchange set a price range of ₹1,700–₹1,785 per share. At the established price range, the exchange will be valued between ₹4.2 lakh crore and ₹4.42 lakh crore. The subscription for the offering will open on September 17 and close on September 21.
The offering, which includes a sale by existing shareholders (OFS) of up to 12.64 crore shares, is poised to become the second-largest public offering in India after Hyundai Motor India's IPO of ₹27,870 crore in 2024. The reduction in the size of the OFS from the initially planned 14.9 crore shares lowered the total offering size from an initial estimate of around ₹30,000 crore. At the lower end of the price range, the offering is valued at approximately ₹21,494 crore, and at the upper end, at ₹22,569 crore.
The IPO will exceed LIC's offer of ₹21,000 crore in 2022 but will remain below Hyundai Motor India's record offering. Since the offering entirely consists of OFS, the proceeds from the share sale will go to existing shareholders, not to NSE itself. The public listing marks a significant milestone for NSE, whose listing plans were suspended for nearly a decade due to regulatory hurdles, including co-location disputes. NSE is expected to debut in the market on September 24.