India may see IPOs worth $20 billion in next one year, says Citigroup; Meesho, Pine Labs among listings in pipeline

India's IPO pipeline

Initial public offerings in India could raise as much as $20 billion over the next 12 months, helping the country to cement its position as one of the world’s busiest listings markets, according to Citigroup Inc.

IPOs have already fetched $12 billion in India this year, with another $5 billion set to be added this month alone thanks in part to Tata Capital Ltd. and LG Electronics Inc.’s Indian arm, which both start trading next week.

“India is likely to be the world’s most active ECM market along with Hong Kong over the next year,” said Harish Raman, Citi’s head of equity capital markets execution and solutions for Asia Pacific.

• Also read | LG Electronics becomes first-ever IPO in India to cross Rs 4 lakh crore-mark in subscription

The boom has been driven by a deep pool of domestic capital, including millions of retail investors, which offset foreigners pulling out more than $15 billion this year as part of a rotation into Chinese equities. Concerns over the 50% US tariff on India’s exports and weaker company profits also fueled foreign selling.

Other Indian listings in the pipeline include digital payments provider Pine Labs Ltd., e-commerce platform Meesho and mutual fund manager ICICI Prudential Asset Management Co. Next year could see India’s biggest IPO on record by wireless carrier Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd.

A nine-year rally in India’s Sensex index has added to the enthusiasm.  “The bigger challenge for India is just the amount of supply that is coming,” Raman said. “There will be some calibration around valuation expectations.”