NSE IPO opens with a ₹22,569 crore offer and a ₹6,746 crore anchor book

The National Stock Exchange opens its public offer on 17 September 2026, after raising ₹6,746.18 crore from anchor investors the day before. The price band is ₹1,700 to ₹1,785 a share. The issue, a pure offer for sale of 12.64 crore shares, is scheduled to close on 21 September.

NSE will not receive any of the money. Existing shareholders are selling 5.11 percent of the equity. At the top of the band the sale is worth about ₹22,569 crore and values the exchange at roughly ₹4.42 lakh crore. Face value is ₹1. The market lot is eight shares. Eligible employees get a ₹170 discount.

Anchor allotment ran at ₹1,785. Life Insurance Corporation of India took the largest ticket, ₹450.30 crore. Norway’s Government Pension Fund Global took ₹249.99 crore. The Monetary Authority of Singapore took ₹199.99 crore. Morgan Stanley Asia (Singapore) was allotted ₹174.99 crore. SBI Life and HDFC Life received ₹149.99 crore each. Nippon India Large Cap Fund took ₹139.99 crore. Mutual funds as a group accounted for about 37 percent of the anchor book.

Who is selling, and at what gain

The red herring prospectus lists a short set of large holders. State Bank of India is the biggest seller by value, offering about 1.60 crore shares that would fetch ₹2,850.5 crore at the upper band. Canada Pension Plan is next at ₹2,119.5 crore, then Aranda Investments of Mauritius at ₹2,007.4 crore, New India Assurance at ₹1,874.2 crore and SBI Capital Markets at ₹1,567.3 crore.

Moneycontrol, working from acquisition costs disclosed in the prospectus, put the combined historical cost of the shares on offer from the ten named sellers at about ₹534 crore. At ₹1,785 those shares would bring in about ₹17,035 crore, a paper gain near ₹16,501 crore. SBI’s own cost on the shares it is selling was ₹0.80 each, or about ₹1.28 crore in total.

The issue is smaller than the draft. NSE first filed for about ₹26,580 crore and cut the size by 17.7 percent. SBI halved the number of shares it planned to sell. The draft went to the Registrar of Companies on 10 September after the regulator cleared it on 4 September. A co-location and dark-fibre settlement of ₹1,491.21 crore had already received in-principle approval from SEBI on 30 July.

What the valuation is asking investors to accept

Religare Broking rated the offer Neutral. One research note circulating on 16 September put NSE on 42.9 times earnings against BSE at 53.3 times, with a grey-market premium near 9 percent. That premium is a street rumour, not an exchange price. It does tell you that unofficial demand exists at a modest markup, not a frenzy.

The bear case is concentration. A large share of NSE’s profit has come from equity derivatives. Volumes in that book have cooled. An offer for sale does not add capital for new products or technology. Buyers are paying for a regulated monopoly-like franchise and for the cash it already throws off.

The bull case is the same franchise viewed from the other side. NSE still clears the bulk of Indian equity and derivatives trades. Listing on BSE will give public investors a direct claim on that flow. Insurance companies and sovereign funds that bought anchors on 16 September are not trading for a one-day pop. They are buying a slice of the pipes.

The calendar from here

Retail, non-institutional and qualified institutional buyers can bid from 17 to 21 September. Listing will follow the usual T+ timetable after allotment. Because the company keeps none of the proceeds, the first test of the offer is not a capex plan. It is whether the book fills at ₹1,785 when the sellers include the country’s largest bank and some of the longest-standing financial institutions on the register.

For a decade the listing was delayed by regulatory and court fights. Those fights are not erased by a price band. They are priced into it. The next five sessions will show whether that price is high enough for the sellers and low enough for the public book.