MUMBAI: After securing the go-ahead from market regulator Securities and Exchange Board (Sebi) after waiting for a decade, the largest bourse NSE has kicked off the listing, with its board forming a panel to oversee the IPO process Friday, which is likely to be over Rs 23,000 crore.
The NSE board considered and approved undertaking an initial public offering through an offer-for-sale of equity shares of face value of Re 1 by the existing shareholders, in accordance with applicable laws and subject to receipt of applicable regulatory and other approvals.
In view of the above, the governing board of the company has approved the re-constitution of the IPO committee for undertaking and facilitating the IPO process which will only be an OFS, the exchange said in a statement Friday.
The re-constituted IPO committee comprises Tablesh Pandey as the chairman who is also a non-independent director on the board of the exchange; Srinivas Injeti, member (public interest director), Mamata Biswa, member (public interest director), Justice (Retd.) Abhilasha Kumari, member (public interest director) G Sivakumar, member (public interest director) and Ashishkumar Chauhan, member (managing director & CEO) of the bourse, the statement added.
The committee will spearhead the listing process, beginning with finalising the criteria for appointing merchant bankers and legal advisors to prepare the draft red herring prospectus (DRHP) which is likely to be filed by March, a source said, adding the NSE will be offloading 4.5% of shares through the OFS, worth over Rs 23,000 crore.
At the current price of around Rs 2,000 per share in the grey market, the issue size could be around Rs 23,000 crore.
According to a source, the NSE is targeting the filing of the DRHP by end-March or early April. If the September quarter audited numbers are used, the filing could happen by end March and if the documentation takes longer, the exchange may file the papers in April using December quarter numbers. Regulations allow DRHP filing with financials not older than six months.
A key operational challenge could be the NSE’s swelling shareholder base of 1.91 lakh which is the largest among unlisted companies. The numbers of shareholders sharply rose from around 5,000 in December 2023, 20,500 in December 2024, and nearly 1.84 lakh by December 2025.
The NSE made its first attempt to list in 2016, but was advised to withdraw the plan as regulatory probes gathered pace over co-location and dark fibre cases. The listing of the exchange even reached the Delhi High Court.
While approval from Sebi’s high-powered advisory committee on settlement was earlier seen as a prerequisite for granting a no-objection certificate, the regulator issued the NoC without waiting for a formal nod from this panel. This decision was taken amid prolonged delays and after key Sebi departments, in principle, agreed to settle the cases under the consent mechanism.
On June 20, 2025, the NSE had filed a settlement application with Sebi to resolve the co-location and other related cases by agreeing to pay around Rs 1,400 crore as settlement for the co-location and dark fibre cases.
In its latest financial disclosures released in November 2025, the NSE made a provision of Rs 1,297 crore, over and above the Rs 100 crore already deposited with Sebi in compliance with a SAT order passed in 2023.
Meanwhile, the NSE reported a sharp 37% plunge in net profit year-on-year at Rs 2,408 crore in the December quarter, while total income fell 9% to Rs 4,395 crore. On a sequential basis, net profit rose 15%, while total income grew 6%, the exchange said in a separate statement.
The operating margin declined 16% to Rs 2,851 crore. This is the first results by the company after it received Sebi's nod for an IPO.