The median return for stocks one month after listing has shrunk to 2.9% this year, down from 22% last year and 25% in 2023, according to a Bloomberg analysis. Meanwhile, about 40% of all main board entrants traded below their offer price a month after debut.
Even so, India’s primary market remains busy. More than 80 companies have gone public in 2025, raising over $15 billion and boosting hopes that proceeds could beat last year’s record of about $21 billion. But the boom is also drawing closer attention, as investors grow uneasy about paying high prices for companies whose profits are still uncertain.
AgenciesWindfall IPO Gains in India Fade | Performance of IPOs One Month After debut
Buyers “are favoring issuers with strong fundamentals and issuances with reasonable valuations,” Kotak Institutional Equities said in a note earlier this month.
Some recent listings such as Glottis Ltd. and BMW Ventures Ltd. have fallen 40% and 38% below their offer prices, respectively. Others have done better — LG Electronics India Ltd. jumped 45% after its debut on Oct. 14, while National Securities Depository Ltd. surged nearly 60% in its first month since listing.
Reflecting the broader slowdown, Edelweiss Recently Listed IPO Fund, one of the few funds focused on newly listed stocks, has fallen 2.6% so far this year, even as India’s benchmark NSE Nifty Index has climbed over 9%, putting it within a whisker of surpassing its all-time high set in September last year.
AgenciesStill, there’s been some improvement over the past two months, according to Neha Agarwal, head of equity capital markets at JM Financial. “Transaction pricing has become more pragmatic, and we are now seeing a degree of discipline and realism returning to the market,” she said.
Whether that trend holds will become clearer in the coming weeks, when eyewear retailer Lenskart Solutions Ltd. and Groww’s parent company, Billionbrains Garage Ventures Ltd., seek investor orders for their debut offerings.