BSE Expects 100 SMEs in this Fiscal to Get Listed & eyes 40 IPOs

Among SMEs the concept of fund raising is fast becoming popular and BSE is becoming an important preference for Indian SMEs. This financial year, BSE is expecting 40 initial public offers (IPOs) on its main platform and around 100 on the small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) platform. This expectation for India's mainstream financial market is indicating a strong revival of the primary markets that has remained parched since the 2010 market boom.

In the 2014-15 fiscal, the premier exchange saw six IPOs on its main board and 35 on its SME platform. But overall funds raised was a paltry Rs.1,200 crore. It is expected to rise more than 10-fold to Rs.15,000 crore in the current fiscal. “The exchange has received applications with draft prospectus from 53 companies for listing. This includes 26 SME issues,” says Mr Ashishkumar Chauhan, Managing Director and chief executive of BSE.

“Many large corporates have also announced their IPO and listing plan and these companies would also file papers soon. We, therefore, expect listing of around 40 IPOs on our main board and around 100 SME issues on the SME platform this year,” he said.

According to Chauhan, the upward movement in the IPO market this year is mainly attributed to the positive trend in the capital markets and an expected revival of the economy. Registry services provider Link Intime India Private Ltd director Kishor Thakkar expects at least three issues every month and investors could expect at least 20-25 active issues aggregating about Rs.15,000 crore by March 2016.

“We have got the mandate for the past three IPO filings (Cafe Coffee Day, Matrix Cellular and RBL Bank). We have in pipeline at least 20 issues for this fiscal aggregating to Rs.15,000 crore,” Thakkar told PTI. These apart, the largest airline IndiGo last week filed for a Rs.2,500 crore IPO along with staffing firm Teamlease (Rs 450-500 crore) and e-retailer Infibeam (about Rs 400 crore).