NSE kicks off IPO process, targets June-July filing

The IPO bankers and the exchange started the drafting process for the offer document and chalked out a rough timeline for the listing, one of the people cited above said on the condition of anonymity.

"NSE met all 20 bankers together for the first time, where everyone agreed to a tentative timeline for the IPO," this person said, adding that the process will begin with the identification of risks and the preparation of required disclosures, work on which is likely to begin this week.

The exchange will contact all retail shareholders who wish to participate in the share sale by the end of April, a second person aware of the discussions said, wishing not to be named discussing private deliberations.

The exchange’s registrar had already asked retail shareholders late last month to express their interest in the IPO.

"The exact date of the filing of the DRHP with Sebi is currently unknown. Accordingly, only such equity shares which have been held continuously since June 15, 2025 (the cut-off date) will be eligible to be sold in the Offer for Sale," the registrar's letter to retail investors read, a copy of which has been reviewed by Mint.

"Once these retail investors express their interests, the bankers will have a three-week period to review the outreach. During this time, the exchange will also formalise institutional participants for the offer-for-sale portion," the second person explained.

Once the sellers and the stake they are paring are fixed by the end of May, the exchange will determine the valuation for the offering, the third person explained. "Right now, everyone agrees that it is too early to discuss valuations," this person added.

If all goes according to plan and everyone is on the same page about the valuation, the exchange is eyeing to file draft papers with the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) by June or early July, the second person added.

“Pursuant to the NOC issued by Sebi, the board approved an initial public offering of the Company through an offer for sale on 6 February 2026. No further comments at this stage,” NSE said in response to Mint's queries.

A listing a decade in the making

The move follows efforts by the exchange to resolve regulatory matters that previously stalled the listing. NSE remains the largest derivatives exchange in the world by volume and operates the primary equity market in India.

NSE’s listing has been building for nearly 10 years. The exchange first filed its IPO papers in 2016, after which it was caught up in the co-location scandal and accused of giving select brokers unfair access to its servers. As the case dragged on, the IPO was shelved amid a leadership overhaul.

In January 2026, NSE reached a ₹1,300 crore settlement with Sebi and received the go-ahead to refile its papers.

As banks lay out a glide path for the offer, legal experts that Mint spoke to believe that the process is likely to require higher-than-usual scrutiny.

"There have been investigations and governance issues in the past that were examined by Sebi, and this necessitates an unusually rigorous disclosure, diligence, and risk-allocation framework in the offer document," Tushar Kumar, a Delhi high court advocate explained.

"With NSE, the objective is not merely successful capital raising but the creation of a defensible, litigation-resilient, and regulatorily robust transaction structure, ensuring that the eventual listing proceeds with unimpeachable legal integrity and institutional confidence,” he told Mint.

The bourse's IPO is likely to be among India's largest offerings with a potential 4–4.5% stake sale. Based on unlisted share prices, this could make the offer worth $1.5 billion to $2.5 billion, or approximately ₹23,000 crore.

The NSE IPO is part of a pipeline of large public offerings expected in 2026, including planned listings by Reliance's Jio Platforms, India's largest asset manager SBI Funds, and e-commerce operator Flipkart. These upcoming issuances follow 2025's primary market activity, during which 371 companies raised over ₹1.75 trillion, featuring large IPOs from companies such as HDB Financial Services Ltd, LG Electronics India Ltd and ICICI Prudential Asset Management Co.

Agnidev Bhattacharya

Agnidev is a business journalist with over two years of reporting experience tracking the intersection of capital, policy, and corporate strategy in India.He joined Mint in December 2025, after a stint at NDTV Profit (erstwhile BQ Prime). At Mint, Agnidev focuses on the high-stakes world of the Indian capital market, specialising in mergers and acquisitions, burgeoning IPOs, and the investment banking industry.Backed by a rigorous, data-driven approach, Agnidev frequently breaks news on the valuation cycles, deal pipelines and listing strategies of India’s most prominent companies. His reportage offers deep dives into the operational health of market leaders across the corporate landscape, providing readers with a clear-eyed view of institutional growth.He has reported on major issues like India's derivatives frenzy, IPO froth, the competitive quick commerce industry, the real-money gaming ban, and has broken investigative stories related to scandals such as IndusInd Bank's accounting manipulation and the Gensol-BluSmart fiasco.As a reporter, he brings stories that ultimately affect your stock market investments, and tries to bring clarity and brevity in a field that is often filled with jargon and noise.