Despite Covid 19 pandemic which has dented business activities in 2020-21, Indian corporates raised an all-time high amount of Rs 1,88,900 crore through public equity markets. This was more than double of the Rs. 91,670 crore that was raised in 2019-20, Pranav Haldea, Managing Director, Prime Database Group, capital markets database major said. The previous highest amount raised in a financial year was Rs 1,75,680 crore in 2017-18.

Haldea also said that contrary to the pandemic induced despondency, 30 main-board initial public offerings (IPOs) came to the market collectively raising over Rs 31,000 crore. This was an increase of 54 per cent from the Rs 20,350 crore raised through 13 IPOs in 2019-20, the Prime Database study said.

The largest IPO in 2020-21 was that of Gland Pharma which garnered Rs 6,480 crore. The average deal size was Rs 1,042 crore.

The overall response from the public to the mainboard IPOs of the year, according to primedatabase.com, was very good. As many as 18 IPOs received a “mega response of more than 10 times while four were oversubscribed by more than three times and the balance eight IPOs were oversubscribed between 1 to 3 times.”

As far as retail investors are concerned, the year witnessed tremendous response from them. The highest number of applications was received by Indigo Paints (25.88 lakhs) followed by Mtar Technologies (25.87 lakhs) and Mazagon Dock (23.56 lakhs).

According to Haldea, response to IPOs was further buoyed by strong listing performance of IPOs of the year. Of the 28 IPOs which got listed, 19 gave a return of over 10 per cent (based on closing price on listing date).

The IPO pipeline continues to remain strong with 18 companies holding SEBI approval proposing to raise nearly Rs. 18,000 crore and another 14 companies are awaiting SEBI approval to raise nearly Rs. 23,000 crore, the study said.