Driven by a historic IPO boom, Indian investment banks collected Rs 2,200 crore in fee from public offerings and share sales last year, said reports.
The advisory fee collected by investment bankers through share sale proceeds are said to be the highest ever, said news agency PTI. In 2020, Indian I-bankers collected Rs 776.7 crore, The Economic Times reported quoting data from Refinitiv.
Despite COVID-19 uncertainties, around 110 companies, led by new-age tech firms and start-ups, listed their shares on Dalal Street last year, raising a whopping $18 billion, data compiled by Bloomberg showed.
“It was an extraordinarily busy year," Bloomberg quoted Jayasankar Venkataraman of Kotak Mahindra Capital, as saying.
Top listings included that of payments giant Paytm's parent One97 Communications, food delivery start-up Zomato, Policybazaar’s parent PB Fintech and beauty start-up Nykaa. Other than this, CarTrade, Kalyan Jewellers, Easy Trip, Aditya Birla Sun Life AMC, Clean Science, Fino PayBank, Sona BLW, MTAR Technologies, Laxmi Organic and Nazara Technologies also listed on the bourses in 2021.
SBI Caps mopped up the maximum banking fee among I-bankers with a 7.8 percent wallet share and $86.9 million in related fees, PTI reported.
Although many more share sales are lined up for 2022, including the mega listing of Life Insurance Corporation, investors are likely to be more selective, cautious and sensitive to valuation, Atul Mehra of JM Financial told ET.
Despite the boom last year, experts feel the fee collected by I-bankers in India is lower than their global counterparts.
"Bankers have strengthened their team sizes and sharpened their expertise to cater to the diverse IPO mandates. But the fees as a percentage in India are significantly lower than the global fees," Mehra said.
