The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) has adopted a cautious stance regarding the inflow of companies in the primary market.
SEBI has issued a notice on Initial Public Offering (IPO) Own Monitoring has been intensified. As a result, SEBI has adopted a slow pace in approving new IPOs. The aim of the market regulator is to protect investors. The time for IPO approval has increased by an average of 125 days in the calendar year 2024. Which is the highest in the last 11 years. Out of the 44 IPOs approved by SEBI this year, 18 took more than 125 days to get approval. However, the market regulator rejected this claim.
Of course, SEBI said in this case that IPOs are taking an average of 125 days to get approval from the regulator, which is not much. Since, the data of IPO approval is enough to dismiss this claim. SEBI said that IPO observation letters took an average of 114 days in the financial year 2023-24. Not only this, no specific data has been provided on how many days it took on average for an IPO to get approval during the year 2024. Bankers said that SEBI has taken a tough stand on key performance indicators (KPIs). KPIs are related to pre-IPO shareholders and other disclosures. Therefore, IPO approval is getting delayed. Some draft papers are sent back for review or approval is withheld.
According to PrimeDatabase, SEBI's IPO approval time witnessed a decline in the years 2020 and 2021. It took SEBI a record average of 75 days to approve 113 IPOs during this period.