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The moment for which investors have been waiting for years for the biggest public offering in the history of the Indian capital market, has finally arrived. The much-awaited IPO of the country’s largest electronic stock exchange, National Stock Exchange of India (NSE), is going to open for subscription to general and institutional investors on Wednesday, 17 September 2026, which will close on 21 September 2026. There is a lot of buzz on Dalal Street regarding this mega issue coming amid unprecedented influx of demat accounts in the Indian stock market, increasing participation of domestic retail investors and historic expansion of the mutual fund industry. However, just before the opening of the issue, leading brokerage house Religare Broking has presented a balanced and cautious view amid the market euphoria by giving ‘Neutral’ rating to this IPO in its detailed research report.
Mathematics of IPO price band, face value of Re 1 and lot size
The National Stock Exchange has fixed the price band of its equity shares at Rs 1,700 to Rs 1,785 per share. The most important technical aspect here for retail investors is to understand that the face value of the company’s shares is just Rs 1 per share. Generally, novice investors mistake low face value for cheap shares, whereas in reality, investors will have to shell out their pockets at the upper price band of Rs 1,785. The minimum bid lot for retail investors has been set at 8 shares. This simply means that a retail investor applying for a lot in the upper price band (Rs 1,785) will have to invest a minimum capital of Rs 14,280, while in the lower band (Rs 1,700) this amount comes to Rs 13,600. Apart from this, a special discount of Rs 170 per share has been declared for the eligible employees of the company, due to which these shares can be allotted to the employees at an effective price of around Rs 1,615, although this financial concession will not be applicable to general retail or HNI investors.
Entire issue ‘Offer for Sale’ (OFS) of Rs 22,562 crore: Company will not get a single new rupee
This public issue is entirely an Offer for Sale (OFS) of Rs 22,562 crore, under which the company is not raising fresh capital by issuing any new shares. This clearly means that the existing promoters and initial large financial shareholders of NSE are partially selling their shares. The entire fund raised from the public and institutional investors will go directly into the pockets of existing shareholders selling shares and not into the bank accounts of the National Stock Exchange. While it is natural for highly cash-generative and debt-free financial exchanges to not require fresh capital, investors should understand that the money raised through this IPO will not be used for technical modernization of the exchange, data server expansion or new acquisitions. On the basis of upper price band, the total market capitalization of NSE is estimated to be around Rs 4.42 lakh crore and on the lower band, it is estimated to be around Rs 4.21 lakh crore. 50 per cent quota in the issue has been reserved for qualified institutional buyers (QIBs), 35 per cent for retail investors and 15 per cent for non-institutional investors (NIIs).
NSE’s massive business model: the power of trading, index licensing and network effects
The National Stock Exchange is not just a platform for buying and selling of equity shares, but it is a complete and powerful financial super-structure. The exchange’s revenue model is driven by diverse streams such as trading fees, clearing and settlement operations, corporate listing charges, real-time market data distribution and benchmark index licensing. Its wholly owned subsidiaries like NSE Clearing, NSE Indices, NSE Data & Analytics and NSE International Exchange (NSEIX) operating in GIFT City are its strong pillars. In the financial market, this is called ‘Network Effect’, where due to the maximum number of traders and liquidity, every newly listed company and broker is forced to give first priority to this platform. The unique registered investor base of the exchange has taken an unprecedented jump from 3.09 crore in March 2020 to 13.24 crore in June 2026. With this, the country’s mutual fund AUM has touched the historic figure of Rs 82.22 lakh crore in June 2026, due to which NSE is earning huge royalty and transaction income through passive index funds.
Financial data and neutral rating of Religare: P/E of 42.9 and concerns about profit decline in FY26
Despite business dominance, the figures for FY 2025-26 are indicating some slowdown on the financial front, which has alerted analysts. Revenue from Operations of NSE declined by almost 3 percent to Rs 16,601.31 crore in the financial year 2025-26, which was Rs 17,140.68 crore in the previous financial year 2024-25. The company’s net profit (PAT) also slipped by 15 percent to Rs 10,302.06 crore from Rs 12,187.69 crore. Operating Ebitda (EBITDA) fell from Rs 12,646.88 crore to Rs 11,097.90 crore, bringing its EBITDA margin down from 73.78 per cent to 66.85 per cent. However, Return on Equity (ROE) is still extremely strong at 32.98 percent and Return on Capital Employed (ROCE) at 42.80 percent. Religare Broking believes the price-to-earnings (P/E) multiple of 42.9 times at the upper band is quite expensive and already covers a large portion of the company’s future growth potential. Apart from this, the ongoing tightening of F&O and options trading rules by SEBI may put direct pressure on the future volume growth and transaction revenue of NSE. Therefore, investors should seriously assess the long-term risks and valuations rather than blindly investing money based only on the company’s giant name.