FY24 was a decent year in terms of the number of IPOs that had come in as well as the QIPs. FY25 does have an exciting list in terms of big names as well. What is it looking like in terms of a fundraising pipeline for FY25?
Neha Agarwal: I believe there is every reason to be optimistic about India. What we are witnessing right now is an unprecedented era of economic development. Look at the kind of macroeconomic stability that investors over here are on the forefront with. It is literally an era marked by boom in infrastructure – in investments and in investors. So, from an India standpoint, we are at the forefront attracting investments not only from domestic mutual funds but FIIs.

FY23 was a boom year for capital markets with literally the highest ever fundraise from QIPs, close to Rs 70,000 crore. IPOs brought in another Rs 60,000 crore. So Rs 1.5 lakh crore has been raised through equity markets in FY23. This momentum continued in FY24, only stronger. We believe there will be Rs 1-1.5 lakh crore fundraise via QIPs, deleveraging of balance sheets, a lot of consolidation happening in consumer sector and in pharma sector where equity is literally being used as a source of capital for those acquisitions.

And financial services, PSU banks contributed close to 35% of the fundraise of QIPs last year. We believe this trend will continue. We are going to see a lot of banks out there raising capital. You are going to see a lot coming in from the manufacturing segment, auto components, renewables, power sector because if India has to grow power is a subset and derivative of growth. We are going to see a lot of activity even in the power sector in India.

There is this worry that private equity players exit at the peak and the retail investors just keep on following suit. Do you think that kind of fear or nervousness will set in which might limit the pace of these fundraisers via QIP or exits from the big investors?
Neha Agarwal: This is a very good question. But if you see the data of all the IPOs of FY2023, the average return and FY24 as well, two years consistently IPOs have given close to 35% to 40% return on a six-month basis for every…, if I literally have to average it. So, investors have made money, institutional investors most of the IPOs are being priced both by domestics and FIIs.

I think they take a valuation decision before they come in and write their cheques. And on the basis of that you will see performance being extremely supportive of that as a product. So, yes, for a lot of companies which have significant private equity investors, the norm is that they get priced expensively, but from post return perspective, investors have made money largely across products on the main board listing and you are going to see some very large deals come off this year, especially laid out by digital and infra space.The funding winter continued almost for a year for the startup world as well. Now if this starts improving, could that funding winter come to an end over there as well?
Neha Agarwal: We are actually seeing that happen in all the analysts’ reports. Our analysts are out there on the road meeting investors, talking about the sector. Ultimately, investors are looking at unit economics and companies which are focusing on their path to profitability. They are going to see a phenomenal window of opportunity out there in the markets in this financial year. It is all about building solid profitable businesses with extremely strong management teams.