SBI, Amundi to offload 10% in SBI Funds IPO, no fresh shares to be issued

Mumbai: SBI Funds Management Ltd, India’s largest asset manager, filed draft papers for an initial public offering (IPO) with the Registrar of Companies on Thursday.

Joint venture partners State Bank of India (SBI) and French asset manager Amundi SA are cumulatively offering 203.7 million shares for sale, which translate to 10% stake in SBI Funds. However, no fresh shares will be issued, so no proceeds of the IPO will go to the company.

SBI will offer up to 128.3 million shares, while Amundi SA will sell up to 75.3 million shares through its India affiliate, the offer document showed.

The two shareholders currently hold 98.02% stake in the company—SBI owns 61.7% and Amundi, 36%. Joint chief executive officer D.P. Singh holds 0.1% stake.

Kotak Mahindra Capital, Axis Capital, ICICI Securities, JM Financial, Motilal Oswal Investment Advisors, SBI Capital Markets and the Indian units of global banks Bank of America, HSBC and Jefferies are the bankers to the issue.

In January 2025, Mint had reported that investment bank pitches were valuing the company at $12-14 billion.

In August 2025, SBI chairman C.S. Setty had said that SBI General Insurance and SBI Mutual Fund were under consideration for public listing, though no specific timeline or valuations were announced at that time.

Three months later, SBI and Amundi announced their decision for a public listing in 2026, subject to approvals and market conditions. India's public sector behemoth said that it would sell 6.3% and Amundi another 3.7%.

Established in 1992, SBI Funds Management offers financial services including mutual funds, portfolio management services, offshore funds, alternative investment funds, and offerings through GIFT City.

Initially, Amundi India Holding's stake was held by Societe Generale S.A, which was transferred to Amundi in June 2011.

As per the company's 2025 annual report, it is the largest asset manager in India. SBI Funds managed average assets worth ₹12.5 trillion as of 31 December 2025, with a mutual fund market share of 15.4%. The company reported a net profit of ₹2,531 crore in FY25, as against ₹2,062 crore in the previous financial year.

In the 2025 fiscal, SBI Mutual Fund became the first fund house to cross ₹10 trillion in assets under management. In the same year, the fund got about 9% of industry market share of the new net-funds flow and added more than 6.2 million new investors.

SBI Funds’ IPO comes at a time of a slowdown in India’s capital market. As of mid-March, returns from 2026 IPOs have averaged a 0.3% premium across 45 issues, the weakest aggregate listing performance since at least 2019, according to data from market intelligence platform PRIME Database.

This comes after 373 IPOs—including 103 mainboard listings—mobilized roughly ₹1.95 trillion in 2025 with returns averaging a 10.6% premium.

SBI Funds’ rival fund manager ICICI Prudential Asset Management’s $1.2 billion IPO hit the streets in December 2025 and the company is now valued at around $15 billion. Canara Robeco Asset Management Co. Ltd was listed in October last year, following the government’s push to public-sector banks (PSBs) to list their subsidiaries to unlock value, Mint reported on 6 November.

However, for SBI Funds, earlier reports indicated that pricing has been a point of conflict between the asset manager and bankers looking to manage the proposed transaction.

Bloomberg reported on 7 January that some of Wall Street’s biggest banks had opted out of advising on a planned public offering. It said that Citigroup Inc, which was part of the initial list of mandated advisers, pulled out over fees, citing people who did not want to be identified while discussing private matters.