NSE Seeks ₹5.26 Lakh Cr Valuation Ahead Of September IPO

The National Stock Exchange, which runs the world's largest derivatives exchange by trading volume, is pitching investors on a valuation of up to ₹5.26 lakh crore, or roughly $55 billion, for its upcoming public listing, according to a Bloomberg report.

During recent investor meetings, the bourse has pegged its share price in the range of ₹2,000 to ₹2,100 per piece. Most legs of NSE's international roadshow are complete, barring a few meetings still pending in West Asia. The report noted that talks are still underway and terms of the offering could shift before the issue is finalised.

NSE representatives met potential investors across six cities, Boston, New York, San Francisco, London, Singapore and Hong Kong. Roughly 120 major institutional investors took part in these sessions, among them BlackRock, Capital Group, GQG Partners, Janus Henderson Group and Allspring Global Investments.

Regulatory Clearance Delayed By Weeks

NSE had initially hoped to secure sign-off from the Securities and Exchange Board of India on its draft prospectus by early August. That approval has now slipped by around three weeks, largely because SBI Capital Markets was added to the list of selling shareholders, prompting fresh disclosures. Any changes to IPO paperwork trigger a mandatory 21-day window for public comments. As a result, the listing is now likely to hit the market only in the latter half of September, the report said.

Should NSE achieve the upper end of its valuation target, it would become the sixth most valuable exchange operator globally, edging past Nasdaq Inc and trailing only slightly behind London Stock Exchange Group. CME Group and Intercontinental Exchange currently sit at the top of that list, each valued near $97 billion.

The draft prospectus, filed in June, confirms the IPO will involve only secondary shares, meaning no fresh capital will flow into the company. Existing investors intend to offload as many as 148.9 million shares, amounting to close to 6% of NSE's total equity.

To manage the share sale, NSE has brought on board a group of 20 banks, including Kotak Mahindra Capital, JM Financial, Morgan Stanley, HSBC Holdings Plc and Citigroup.