Mumbai: National Stock Exchange of India Ltd. plans to file a draft prospectus this month for an initial public offering of about 100 billion rupees ($1.5 billion, Dh5.44 billion), pushing ahead with the nation’s biggest listing in more than six years after its top executive resigned, people with knowledge of the matter said.
The share sale could value the operator of India’s largest bourse at as much as 400 billion rupees, said the people, who asked not to be identified as the information is private. Existing NSE investors plan to sell about 25 per cent of the company through the offering, which won’t include any new stock, the people said.
NSE’s offering would be the largest IPO in the country since Coal India Ltd.’s 2010 share sale, which raised 154.8 billion rupees, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. It may compete for investors with crosstown rival BSE Ltd., Asia’s oldest stock exchange, which filed a prospectus with the capital markets regulator in September.
“Listing will give investors an opportunity to participate in the business of the exchanges, which is expected to grow with the growth in the economy,” Deven Choksey, managing director of Mumbai-based brokerage K.R. Choksey Shares & Securities Pvt., said by phone on Friday. “NSE has a little bit of a competitive advantage over the BSE.”
The board of NSE will make a final decision on the amount of stock to be sold in the offering, and details could change, the people said. Arindam Saha, a spokesman for NSE, declined to comment.
Citigroup Inc., Morgan Stanley, JM Financial Ltd. and Kotak Mahindra Bank Ltd. are leading the offering. NSE has also appointed HDFC Bank Ltd., ICICI Securities Ltd., IDFC Ltd. and IIFL Holdings Ltd. to help arrange the listing, the people said.
NSE said on December 2 that Chief Executive Officer Chitra Ramkrishna had resigned for personal reasons. J. Ravichandran was appointed interim CEO, according to a statement at the time.
