National Stock Exchange, the country’s largest bourse by profits, is “hopeful” of launching its mega ₹ 10,000 crore initial public offering in 2018-19, a top official said.

“It’s very difficult to give an exact timeline. But, I am hopeful of it happening in 2018-19”, Vikram Limaye, Managing Director & CEO, NSE told BusinessLine on the sidelines of an NSE event here on Tuesday.

This indicative timeline of tapping the IPO market in 2018-19 is a sort of push back to the bourse’s earlier plan of hitting the market by February-March 2018. Stating that it was difficult to give an exact timeline for the proposed IPO,

Limaye said that he expects some visibility on the exact IPO timing once SEBI gets the reports commissioned by it (market regulator) in the co-location matter and takes a decision on the issue.

NSE would have to re-file its draft prospectus/offer document if were to get the final go-ahead from SEBI after a decision on the co-location matter.

It may be recalled that the NSE Chairman Ashok Chawla had in August last year told BusinessLine that he was hopeful of completing the IPO by February-March this year.

DHAKA STOCK EXCHANGE

Limaye said that NSE was “still interested” in strategic stake in the Dhaka Stock Exchange. He dismissed media reports of NSE gaining control of this Bangladesh bourse through backdoor route as “largely exaggerated”.

IPO ACTIVITY

Limaye sees the IPO activity in India to remain robust in the current calendar year too despite the equity markets being volatile. “We expect this year much better IPO activity even in terms of the number of offerings—both in our main Board and also the SME exchange. he said.

Limaye also expects issuers from diversified set of industries coming to the IPO market this year.

“Last year, there was some concentration around insurance and other financial services. There were also PEs getting their exits via IPOs. Hopefully, there will be more fund raising by issuers as growth capital this year”, he said.

LICENSING INDIAN INDICES

Limaye also ruled out any rethink on the recent decision of NSE (along with BSE and Metropolitan Stock Exchange) to restrict the accessibility of Indian equity market to foreign exchanges. The three Indian equity bourses had recently said that they would stop licensing products and data to foreign bourses so as to prevent trading from migrating overseas.

“It is a commercial decision. There is no issue of a re-think on it despite MSCI describing it as anti-competitive. There is nothing anti-competitive about this move. We are only protecting our interests”, he said.

CROSS CURRENCY DERIVATIVES

Meanwhile, Limaye said that the initial response to cross currency derivatives—which was launched by NSE on Tuesday—was “encouraging” from all stakeholders/ participants

To encourage active participation in cross currency derivatives, NSE has decided to waive transaction fees for such contracts for three months beginning today.

“In order to encourage active participation in cross currency F&O contracts, it has been decided that no transaction charges will be levied on the trades done in cross currency F&O contracts... from February 27, 2018 till May 31, 2018," NSE said in a circular issued late Monday night.

Related Topics