NSE IPO Opens Tomorrow: CEO Flags 'Unexpectedly Large' Demand

Anchor investors are placing their bids on Wednesday, September 16, for the National Stock Exchange of India Limited's initial public offering, one working day before the issue opens to everyone else. Bidding for retail and other categories runs from Thursday, September 17 to Monday, September 21, with the UPI mandate cut-off at 5:00 pm on the closing day.

Speaking ahead of the launch, NSE Managing Director and CEO Ashishkumar Chauhan said demand for the issue had been "unexpectedly large", with interest running well past the number of shares available. He also indicated that the anchor portion had been scaled back to roughly ₹6,250 crore, against an earlier market expectation of around ₹9,000 crore.

Reading the demand signal without overreading it

Chauhan's remarks are the clearest indication so far of institutional appetite, but they stop short of hard numbers. His own framing of the anchor size was approximate rather than final, and he said the split between domestic institutional investors and foreign portfolio investors could not be shared while allocation was still being worked out.

The confirmed anchor figure will only be known when the allocation filing is published. Under the red herring prospectus, up to 60% of the qualified institutional buyer portion can go to anchor investors, with 33.33% of that slice reserved for domestic mutual funds and 6.67% for life insurers and pension funds.

Why the offer got smaller before it even opened

The issue reaching the market is lighter than NSE originally planned. Chauhan said the stake on sale was reduced from about 6.2% to 5.11% of the company after some existing shareholders were reluctant to sell at the proposed valuation. Reuters has reported that the share count was cut from roughly 14.89 crore to 12.64 crore.

NSE subsequently approached certain shareholders to participate so the offer would meet listing requirements. For investors weighing the price band, that sequence is itself a data point on how existing holders viewed the valuation on offer.

The offer on paper

Because the entire issue is an offer for sale, NSE itself receives none of the proceeds. The money goes to selling shareholders, a list that includes State Bank of India, Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, Aranda Investments (Mauritius), MS Strategic (Mauritius), Bank of Baroda, General Insurance Corporation of India and New India Assurance. Retail applications go through the ASBA route with a UPI mandate, so funds remain blocked in the bank account until allotment.

At ₹22,562 crore, this would be the second-largest IPO in Indian market history, behind Hyundai Motor India's ₹27,859 crore in October 2024 and ahead of LIC's ₹20,557 crore in May 2022.

What the grey market is — and is not — signalling

Unofficial grey market quotes for the NSE issue have cooled from levels seen in early September. Beyond that direction of travel, very little can be stated as fact.

Trackers were publishing materially different premiums for September 16 itself, with the gap between them running into double digits in rupee terms. The grey market is unregulated and has no official price source, and its quotes do not forecast the listing price. No single figure is reproduced here as verified data.

The numbers behind a ₹4.4 lakh crore price tag

At the top of the band, NSE is seeking a valuation of roughly ₹4.4 lakh crore. The June 2026 quarter shows what supports it:

1. Revenue from operations rose 13.1% year-on-year to ₹4,560 crore
2. Consolidated profit after tax increased 6.7% to ₹3,120 crore
3. Operating EBITDA grew 14.8% to ₹3,594 crore, margin improving to 79% from 78%
4. Total income was ₹5,252 crore; contribution to the exchequer was ₹20,579 crore

The modest profit growth partly reflects a strong base — the year-ago quarter saw PAT climb 14%, helped by a one-off gain sitting in discontinued operations.

On market position, the Redseer report commissioned for the offer puts NSE's FY2026 share at 92.99% of cash market turnover and 99.79% of equity futures turnover. As of June 30, 2026, the exchange had 13.24 crore unique registered investors and 3,005 listed entities.

A listing that spent a decade in the waiting room

NSE's public issue has been pending for close to ten years, held up largely by the co-location and dark-fibre proceedings. That obstacle cleared on July 30, 2026, when SEBI in principle accepted settlement terms totalling ₹1,491.21 crore, of which ₹776.47 crore had already been deposited. NSE had provided for the bulk of that amount in FY26, so the payment draws down an existing liability rather than hitting current earnings.

Also Read: Unimech Aerospace Plans ₹750 Crore QIP to Meet Shareholding Norm

The concentration question investors will have to price

The central analytical issue is how much of NSE's earnings rest on equity derivatives at a time when SEBI has been tightening that segment. The direction already shows in the data: NSE's share of equity options premium turnover was 74.71% in FY2026, well below its near-total dominance in equity futures.

Chauhan has said weekly options now contribute around 42% of total income, against 60–70% three to four years ago, with the balance coming from cash equities, market data, indices, colocation and clearing.

Where the shares will trade is a separate quirk. NSE will list on BSE, since an exchange cannot list on its own platform without separate regulatory clearance. BSE granted in-principle approval on July 20, 2026 and is the designated stock exchange for the offer.

Allotment is widely expected around September 22, with listing on or about September 24, though neither date appears in the prospectus, and both remain tentative until officially confirmed. The first real test comes on Thursday, when category-wise subscription data begins to show whether retail and non-institutional investors share the appetite the anchor book has signalled.