The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) gave a no-objection certificate to the National Stock Exchange’s (NSE) initial public offering on Friday. This will pave the way for the country’s biggest exchange to get listed.
“With Sebi’s (Securities and Exchange Board of India) approval, we embark on a new chapter of value creation for all our stakeholders,” said NSE Chairperson Srinivas Injeti. This approval also reinforces confidence in NSE being an integral part of the Indian economy and beacon of Indian capital markets, he added.
In early January, Sebi Chairperson Tuhin Kanta Pandey had indicated that the regulator will issue the NOC by the end of the month. Two weeks ago, Pandey added that Sebi has given the in-principle approval for the resolution of NSE’s co-location case.
Decade-Long Listing Struggle
This marks an end to a decade-long struggle of the bourse to file a Draft Red Herring Prospectus (DRHP) to get listed. NSE had submitted its DRHP for the first time in 2016. However, it was withdrawn due to the investigations on the colocation case, in which the company was alleged to have given preferential and unfair faster access to certain brokers between 2010 and 2014.
According to exchange sources, it had also tried to file another one a few years back. However, the market regulator had not accepted it and given it a checklist of pre-conditions that needed to be met before it could proceed with the application.
The exchange is currently the world’s largest derivatives exchange group and is also top third globally in the equity segment in terms of number of trades. The exchange is currently valued at almost ₹5 lakh crore and is expected to dilute 2.5% stake.
Financial Provision Impact
During the September quarter, NSE had recognised a provision of almost ₹1,300 crore for the settlement of the colocation and dark fibre case. This was in addition to the ₹100 crore it had deposited with Sebi following the Securities Appellate Tribunal’s order in 2023. Its consolidated net profit for the quarter had declined 33% on year to ₹2,098 crore and total income had fallen 17% to ₹4,160 crore.
In the unlisted market, shares of NSE had seen significantly higher prices, reaching a peak of ₹2,400 apiece in May 2025, as per data on UnlistedZone. On Friday, the price was ₹2,050 per share.
In October 2024, the exchange settled a matter of alleged misuse of its trading access point (TAP) system by paying the markets regulator Rs 643 crore.
This came after the market regulator withdrew charges against the NSE and its seven former employees, including Chitra Ramkrishna and Ravi Narain, in the decade-old co-location facility case, citing absence of evidence to support the allegations.
Apart from the NSE, those who settled the case were Vikram Limaye, Umesh Jain, GM Shenoy, Narayan Neelakantan, VR Narasimhan, Kamala K, Nilesh Tinaikar, R Nandakumar, and Mayur Sindhwad.