Do it yourself

The recent discussion triggered by a viral video featuring Sanjeev Prasad , Co-Head – Institutional Equities at Kotak Institutional Equities, has reignited scrutiny of India’s IPO markets. Prasad highlighted that over the past five years, roughly 40% of IPO proceeds have gone to promoters and early investors, while only around 15% has been deployed toward capital expenditure—suggesting limited contribution to real economic asset creation. His statement resonated widely, reflecting growing investor unease over whether public equity markets are increasingly serving as exit avenues rather than engines of new growth. While the concern is valid and deserves examination, the broader picture is more nuanced than a headline statistic reveals. The Concern: Is the IPO market becoming exit driven? The disproportionate share of Offer for Sale (OFS) raises legitimate questions: ·          Are IPOs being priced and marketed primarily to facilitate stake...

In recent times, one of the most extrapolated data by the market participants in India has been the household participation in the capital markets. Several research papers/reports have highlighted the relatively low deployment of the Indian household savings into the capital market, especially listed equity shares, to argue for a high growth potential in this area. In fact, capital market related stocks like brokerages, AMCs, depositories, exchanges and transfer agents & registrars, have been outperforming the broader markets for the past few years. Impressed by the trend, NSE has even launched an index (Nifty Capital Market index) to capture the performance of this sector. Indubitably, the Indian capital markets are at the threshold of a major transition. Acceleration in institutionalization of household participation has been a major trend in the past five years. Access to banking and financial markets has improved materially with the advancement of technology and digitalizatio...