Mumbai: The first quarter of 2024 ending March was the busiest three months period for the domestic equity capital markets (ECM), raking in a whopping $14.8 billion in proceeds from across 114 issues, up from $2.85 billion in the year-ago period, according to an industry report.
In the 12 months ending March 2024, the domestic companies raked in $45.31 billion of moolah from across 530 issuances, according to the data tabulated by Dealogic, which is the financial markets platform from the London-based private equity major Carlyle Group.
According to the report, "the country had the busiest first quarter on record for equity capital raising, with 144 issuances raising $14.8 billion, the most on record."
As against this, was the issuance were only $11.68 billion in Q4 of 2023, $9.37 billion in Q3 and $6.56 billion in Q2 and $2.85 billion in Q1 of 2023.
From a dealmakers or book-runners perspective, according to Dealogic, the top two slots in terms of value of the issues were cornered by Wall Street brokerages, and also five of the top ten are also from there only.
The league table is led by Citi India with $2.10 billion in issue proceeds from across five deals and cornering 14 percent of the market, followed by BofA Securities at $1.31 billion across four issues and 9 percent market share. At third is ICICI Securities with $1.27 million from across 16 deals and a market share of 9 percent.
At the fourth spot is JP Morgan with $1.16 billion from across five deals and 8 percent market pie, followed by Kotak Mahindra Bank with $1 billion from seven issues and 7 percent market share. The next five are Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, IIFL Securities, Axis Bank and JM Financial.
What is interesting is that the top 10 players have controlled 70 percent or $10.46 billion of the total $14.8 billion market in Q4.
"With a strong pipeline and continued strong investor interest, we expect more records to fall in 2024," said Rahul Saraf, head of investment banking at Citi India, said in a statement, which added that the American brokerage has a busy pipeline across various sectors and expects further strong volumes during 2024.