There is a certain irony in NSE itself getting listed. The institution that has spent more than three decades providing a platform for companies to raise capital and investors to trade shares became a listed company on Thursday. Because Sebi’s rules do not allow a stock exchange to list on its own platform, NSE made its debut on rival BSE. When BSE went public in 2017, its shares had listed on NSE.NSE shares opened at ₹1,800 on the BSE, a 0.84% premium to the issue price of ₹1,785. They climbed as high as ₹1,878, or 5.21% above the issue price, before ending the day at ₹1,818, giving IPO investors a first-day gain of 1.85%. The positive debut came on a weak day for the broader market, with the Sensex falling 1,247.71 points, or 1.67%.The National Stock Exchange was incorporated in 1992, the same year the securities scam associated with Harshad Mehta shook Dalal Street. It was recognised as a stock exchange by Sebi in April 1993 and began operations in 1994.At ₹22,561.57 crore, NSE’s initial public offering is the second-largest in Indian stock-market history, behind only Hyundai Motor India’s ₹27,858.75-crore issue in 2024. NSE’s arrival pushes LIC, Paytm and Tata Capital to third, fourth and fifth positions respectively in the current league of India’s biggest IPOs.The issue was subscribed 5.71 times, with bids for 50.58 crore shares against 8.86 crore shares available for subscription. Total demand crossed ₹90,000 crore. Thursday’s listing culminates a push to take NSE public that stretched for roughly a decade.NSE’s IPO was entirely an offer for sale, meaning existing shareholders sold their shares and NSE itself received none of the proceeds. Around 12.64 crore shares were offered. At the ₹1,785 issue price, NSE was valued at about ₹4.42 lakh crore, or roughly $46 billion. The roughly $2.35-billion IPO, therefore, represented only around 5% of the company.
How the rest of India’s top five fared
NSE’s 1.85% gain makes it only the second of India’s current five biggest IPOs to finish its first trading day above the issue price. Tata Capital is the other, and NSE’s gain is the larger of the two, making it the best debut among the five. Hyundai Motor India, LIC and Paytm all ended their debut sessions in the red.Shah Rukh Khan has been associated with Hyundai for nearly three decades, but there was no day-one chamatkar for the stock. Shares issued at ₹1,960 closed their first session at ₹1,820.40 on the BSE, a decline of 7.12%. It closed at ₹2,090.10 on Thursday, 6.64% above its IPO price.LIC’s ₹20,557.23-crore IPO also fell on debut. Against the headline issue price of ₹949, its shares finished their first trading session at ₹875.45 on the BSE, down 7.75%. LIC issued bonus shares in a 1:1 ratio in 2026, which makes the ₹949 IPO price ₹474.50 on a bonus-adjusted basis. At the September 24 BSE close of ₹406, the stock was still 14.44% below that level.
India’s biggest IPOs
Paytm’s debut was considerably harsher. The ₹18,300-crore issue had been priced at ₹2,150 a share. By the end of its first trading day in November 2021, the stock had fallen to ₹1,564.15 on the BSE, a massive loss of 27.25%. It closed at ₹1,734.10 on Thursday, still 19.34% below its IPO price.Tata Capital, which raised ₹15,511.87 crore in 2025, closed its first session at ₹330.40 on the BSE against an issue price of ₹326, a 1.35% gain. It closed at ₹339.90 on Thursday, 4.26% above the issue price.These longer-term comparisons, here and in the global section below, are share-price returns only and exclude dividends. In LIC’s case, the calculation starts with the headline ₹949 IPO price, rather than the discounted prices available to some categories of investors, and then adjusts that price for the subsequent 1:1 bonus issue.
The global league
In June, SpaceX raised a record $75 billion in its base IPO by selling about 555.56 million shares at $135 each. The offering valued Elon Musk’s space, satellite and AI business at around $1.77 trillion and displaced Saudi Aramco as the largest IPO on record. Six years earlier, in May 2020, SpaceX had become the first private company to send humans into orbit, flying two NASA astronauts to the International Space Station.SpaceX opened at $150 and finished its first trading session at $160.95, a listing-day gain of 19.22% over its $135 offer price. The listing also pushed Musk’s estimated wealth beyond $1 trillion, making him the world’s first trillionaire. Since listing, SpaceX has traded as high as $225.64 and as low as $104.83. It closed at $148.36 on September 23, still 9.90% above its IPO price. , NSE’s ₹22,561.57-crore issue is worth around $2.35 billion. That makes SpaceX’s $75-billion IPO roughly 32 times the size of NSE’s offering.Before SpaceX, Saudi Aramco held the record. Its 2019 base offering raised $25.60 billion, and its shares hit the Saudi exchange’s 10% daily upper limit on debut, closing at 35.2 riyals against an offer price of 32 riyals. Alibaba’s original 2014 offering raised $21.80 billion before its overallotment option was exercised. Its shares were priced at $68 and closed their first day at $93.89, a gain of 38.07%. SoftBank Corp’s 2018 base offering was around $21.30 billion. Priced at ¥1,500 a share, the telecom operator ended its first trading day at ¥1,282, a decline of 14.53%.SoftBank carried out a 10-for-1 stock split in October 2024, reducing the comparable IPO price to ¥150 on an adjusted basis. At ¥246.30 on September 24, the shares were 64.20% above that adjusted IPO price.Agricultural Bank of China completes the top five when the ranking is restricted to companies’ first public-market offerings and uses original proceeds before overallotments. Its combined Hong Kong and Shanghai IPO raised about $19.20 billion in 2010. Once its overallotment options were exercised, proceeds rose to $22.1 billion, narrowly overtaking ICBC’s $21.9 billion to make it the world’s largest IPO at the time.
World’s biggest IPOs
In July, South Korean chipmaker SK Hynix raised $26.51 billion through a US offering of American Depositary Shares. On size alone, that would place it between SpaceX and Saudi Aramco. But SK Hynix was already publicly traded on the Korea Exchange before its Nasdaq offering. The ranking here counts only a company’s first public-market offering.
The next contenders
Anthropic, the AI company behind Claude, was founded in 2021 by former OpenAI employees, including siblings Dario and Daniela Amodei. It is now preparing for a public offering. The Wall Street Journal reported that its anticipated IPO had shifted to November and that investors expected the company could raise as much as $100 billion at a valuation of around $2 trillion. With the amount of hype created regarding what Claude can and can’t do, the valuation may well reach astronomical figures.OpenAI, set up in 2015 as a non-profit with Elon Musk and Sam Altman as co-chairs, is further away from a listing. Altman, now CEO, said this month that the company would not go public in 2026.In India, Jio Platforms has received Sebi clearance for an IPO that bankers estimate could raise $3.5 billion to $4 billion, or around ₹37,000-37,700 crore. ET has reported that the offer could launch around the end of October or early November. At the upper end of that reported size, Jio would comfortably surpass Hyundai Motor India’s record and become India’s largest IPO.The histories of India’s biggest issues, and of the global giants, show why listing day is only a snapshot. Paytm’s weak debut has been followed by a long struggle to regain its issue price, while Hyundai recovered after falling on day one. Global mega listings have produced everything from spectacular gains to steep early losses. Warren Buffett’s advice still applies: be fearful when others are greedy, and greedy when others are fearful.
