MUMBAI: The National Stock Exchange of India Ltd (NSE) has lined up a record 20 merchant bankers for its initial public offering (IPO), seeking to manage one of India’s largest listings while aligning the interests of powerful market participants ahead of the deal.
The large roster reflects the exchange’s effort to market the offer widely and ensure broad participation from major institutional investors. Bankers and advisers said bringing most leading equity capital markets firms into the transaction could help manage distribution, price discovery and anchor allocations while limiting potential criticism of the IPO’s valuation or process.
NSE’s IPO is likely to be among India’s largest offerings with a potential 4-4.5% stake sale that could make the offer worth around $1.5 billion to $2.5 billion, or approximately ₹23,000 crore, based on unlisted share prices. A large syndicate of will also help widen investor outreach and support book-building for the offer.
At current unlisted valuations and the indicative offer size, NSE’s IPO could become India’s largest ever. Before this, the top spot was held by Life Insurance Corp.’s ₹21,000-crore IPO in May 2022. The state-backed insurer had syndicated 10 bankers for the offering.
Last week, NSE appointed 20 global and domestic banks including Morgan Stanley, Citi, JP Morgan, Kotak, , Axis and IIFL Capital to manage its offer. This makes it the largest syndicate for an IPO in India, with the record previously being held by ICICI Prudential Asset Management Co., whose ₹10,602-crore IPO in December 2025 saw the participation of 18 bankers.
Inside the tent
Most of the banks selected for NSE’s IPO have affiliated asset management divisions that oversee domestic mutual funds.
“These group AMCs (asset management companies) will participate in the IPO, and having your merchant banking affiliate inside the process helps NSE secure institutional demand for the listing at competitive prices without having to look too far from home,” one of the merchant bankers who is part of the IPO told Mint.
But the unusually large syndicate also serves a strategic purpose: keeping all major market players inside the transaction.
“In the extremely competitive investment banking landscape, this allows the exchange to hedge itself against adverse market signalling or competing narratives that would definitely have come up if some of the big names remained outside the transaction,” the banker added, asking not to be identified discussing private deliberations.
“A broad syndicate of 20 bankers curbs inter-bank rivalry, uniting all key players to drive the IPO’s success without competitive friction,” said Alay Razvi, managing partner at law firm Accord Juris. “Including nearly every major ECM (equity capital markets) player fosters alignment, neutralising potential criticism on valuations or process, which is vital for NSE to project an unassailable debut after years of delays,” Razvi explained.
Heavy lifting
The size of the syndicate also reflects the operational demands of the offering. NSE’s merchant bankers will have to reach out to thousands of retail investors who hold unlisted NSE shares for more than a year, offering them a chance to participate in the offer for sale.
“This will be a time-consuming and cumbersome process, given the kind of interest there has been in unlisted NSE shares,” a second merchant banker to the offer explained, requesting anonymity. “A lot of this grunt work has been anticipated by the exchange, and that’s where having 20 banks can help speeding things up for the IPO,” this person explained.
Syndicate members also expect the compensation structure to reflect the expanded roster, with the total fee pool divided among the 20 participating firms.
“The fee pool will get diluted to an extent that’s never been seen before,” a third banker said. “But most of us don’t see this as a problem since we get our name on a marquee listing.”
A fourth banker that Mint spoke to anticipates a division between operational output and deal attribution. “Though lead bankers haven’t been assigned, domestic firms are likely to manage the transaction’s execution and logistics. Bulge-bracket institutions on the roster and the left and right leads will end up registering the primary public credit for the offering,” they said.
Past scrutiny
NSE’s decision to appoint a syndicate of 20 banks also comes in light of the regulatory scrutiny that historically surrounded the bourse’s proposed listing. There have been investigations and governance issues in the past that were examined by the Securities and Exchange Board of India, and this necessitates an unusually rigorous disclosure, diligence, and risk-allocation framework in the offer document, Tushar Kumar, a Delhi high court advocate explained.
“The engagement of eight law firms flows from the same imperative,” he explained. Typically one firm acts as the issuer’s counsel, a separate counsel represents the various book running lead managers, and additional specialist advisors review regulatory exposure, legacy proceedings, and cross-border securities law implications where global investors participate.
“With NSE, the objective is not merely successful capital raising but the creation of a defensible, litigation-resilient, and regulatorily robust transaction structure, ensuring that the eventual listing proceeds with unimpeachable legal integrity and institutional confidence,” Kumar said.
Queries sent to NSE on Sunday remained unanswered till press time.
The joins a pipeline of large public offerings expected in 2026, including planned listings by Reliance’s Jio Platforms, India’s largest asset manager SBI Funds, digital payments platform PhonePe, and e-commerce operator Flipkart. These upcoming issuances follow 2025’s primary market activity, during which 371 companies raised over ₹1.75 trillion, featuring large IPOs from companies such as HDB Financial Services Ltd, LG Electronics India Ltd and ICICI Prudential Asset Management Co.