Shares of New India Assurance rallied as much as 14.2% to an intraday high of Rs 188.50 on the BSE on Thursday after the National Stock Exchange (NSE) filed its Draft Red Herring Prospectus (DRHP) with Sebi for its long-awaited initial public offering (IPO), which is expected to be one of the largest listings in India's capital market history.
According to the DRHP, the government-owned insurer will offload more than 1 crore NSE shares through the offer-for-sale. The total acquisition cost of these shares stands at Rs 33.60 lakh.
Overall, seven PSU shareholders are set to divest nearly 8 crore shares in the exchange as part of the proposed IPO.
The proposed IPO is entirely an OFS of up to 14.89 crore equity shares with a face value of Re 1 each, representing nearly 6% of NSE's paid-up equity capital. The issue size has been fixed at 6% of the exchange's paid-up capital.
NSE's shares will be listed on BSE, mirroring the arrangement under which BSE's own shares are listed on NSE.
The IPO filing marks the culmination of a process that began in December 2016 when NSE first filed a DRHP for a Rs 10,000-crore issue. The listing plan was subsequently delayed due to the co-location controversy.
The exchange remains one of the most profitable and strategically important institutions in India's financial ecosystem. Revenue from operations rose to Rs 16,601 crore in FY26 from Rs 14,780 crore in FY24, while net profit increased to Rs 10,302 crore from Rs 8,305 crore during the same period. However, profit after tax declined 15% year-on-year from Rs 12,188 crore in FY25 to Rs 10,302 crore in FY26, partly reflecting the impact of SEBI's tighter regulations on equity derivatives trading.
Read more: En route to D-Street: NSE files draft papers with Sebi
World’s leading equity derivatives exchange
According to the World Federation of Exchanges, NSE retained its position as the world's largest equity derivatives exchange, with more than 36.99 billion contracts traded during Fiscal 2026, including activity on NSE International Exchange (NSEIX). As of March 31, 2026, it was also the largest exchange in India by cash market turnover and the third-largest globally by the number of trades in cash equities.
The scale of its operations is also reflected in its technology infrastructure, which processed an average of 12-14 billion messages daily as of March 2026. The exchange recorded its highest-ever cumulative trading activity on June 4, 2024, when total trades across segments reached 293.85 million.
India's largest stock exchange by cash market turnover, equity derivatives turnover and exchange-traded currency derivatives turnover, NSE has also been a strong cash generator for shareholders. The exchange paid a dividend of Rs 35 per share in both FY25 and FY26, while the FY24 dividend stood at Rs 18 per share on a bonus-adjusted basis.
The IPO is being managed by 20 book-running lead managers, including Kotak Mahindra Capital Company, Morgan Stanley India, HSBC Securities & Capital Markets India, SBI Capital Markets, JP Morgan India, Citi Global Markets India, JM Financial, Axis Capital, ICICI Securities and HDFC Bank, among others. MUFG Intime India Private Limited has been appointed as the registrar to the issue.
