NSE IPO: The most eagerly awaited show after ‘Baahubali-2’

Mumbai, April 23 (IANS) While movie lovers are hotly debating as to why Kattappa killed Baahubali, stock market investors appear to be eagerly looking forward to the big ticket Rs 10,000 crore-plus IPO of the National Stock Exchange (NSE).

"An IPO launch is typically much akin to the making of a Bollywood movie, involving story, script, drama, distribution and pre-launch build up," said Arun Kejriwal, founder of investment advisory and research firm KRIS.

"We too have lights-camera-action kind of scenario in IPOs. We literally switch on the lights when SEBI (Securities and Exchange Board of India) gives its nod, and camera and action begin during the road shows," he explained.

As in a Bollywood movie which plays to its audience, an IPO (Initial Public Offering) addresses the investor community with analysts and broking communities adding spice with reviews and interpretations of price bands and valuations.

In the case of NSE (National Stock Exchange of India), investors and analysts are debating the valuation of NSE, the dates of IPO even as the primary market is showing an increased retail participation -- much akin to the runaway success of some of the recent movies. For instance, among the recent IPOs, ICICI Prudential and BSE issues saw around 11 lakh applications. The IPO of retail chain D-Mart attracted 19 lakh applications. This clearly indicates increasing investor appetite for IPOs, say analysts.

Retail investors have always trusted and preferred bidding for big-ticket issues since the chance of getting allotments are brighter here. The fact that investors of D-Mart have reaped rich goes to prove that the sentiment will remain high. Analysts say that the NSE IPO is likely to attract more than 30 lakh applications.

A big advantage with the NSE is that its members are present in all 29 states and seven union territories, 600 districts, 3,250 cities and the exchange has 34,000 branches pan-India. More than 19 million retail investors are registered with the NSE.

Latest data available from the NSE shows that the last fiscal saw an addition of more than 18 lakh new investor registrations. "So, the audience is on the rise," Kejriwal observed.

What is even more interesting is that the number of investor registration increased five-fold in the last 10 years from around 42 lakh at the end of March 2006 to 2.14 crore at end of March 2017.

On the strength of the recent blockbuster IPOs, Gujarat and Rajasthan have seen tremendous growth in new investor registrations. Gujarat alone has seen a 90 per cent growth in new investor registration, official sources said.

Ahmedabad city saw close to one lakh new investors, followed by Rajkot with around 37,000 new investors. Surat and Vadodara had new registrations of more than 27,000 and 20,000, respectively.

Rajasthan also witnessed positive growth in new investor registrations. Jaipur had 30,000 new investor registrations followed by Jodhpur with 10,000 registrations. Other cities such as Bhilwara and Bikaner have also shown double-digit growth with close to 4,000 new investors in both cities, said the sources.

The growth has shown a pan-India trend. Haryana has seen increase in registration with growth coming from smaller cities and towns like Hansi, Rohtak and Bhiwani.

Among the north-eastern states, Assam is the only state to witness close to 16,000 registrations.

As regards the cash market -- the daily retail transactions -- the last financial year has seen more than 53 lakh clients transacting on this segment. The last time cash market investors crossed the 50 lakh-mark was in FY 2010-11.

NSE was ranked the first among exchanges globally in terms of stock index options and currency options trading volumes in 2015, according to the World Federation of Exchanges.

NSE has leading market shares by total turnover of 85 per cent in equity cash trading, 94 per cent in equity derivatives trading, 59 per cent in currency derivatives trading, 79 per cent in interest rate derivatives trading, 77 per cent in ETFs trading, and 80 per cent in corporate bonds trading for fiscal 2016, according to The Wholesale and Investment Banking Report by global management consultancy Oliver Wyman.

Ranked first among the exchanges globally in terms of stock index option and currency option trading volumes in 2015, within two decades reaching to the Global ranking of fourth position for Equity Trading Volume and second position for derivatives turnover, NSE has clearly made a mark globally.

There were 1,822 companies with a combined market capitalisation of Rs 108.66 trillion listed on NSE's equity cash market as of September 30, 2016.

The exchange has a pan-India, high-speed network, which supports more than 181,524 terminals connecting to its platforms, NSE said in its offer document filed with SEBI.