Reforms help retail interest in IPOs grow 3-times: Sebi

Indicating greater retail interest in IPOs, the average number of individual investors bidding for shares in a public offer has risen over three times to 1.17 lakh since various regulatory reforms came into effect last fiscal, shows an internal Sebi study.

The growth in retail participation is even sharper, over 10 times, after removing those IPOs which got either withdrawn or were very large in size, shows an 'impact analysis' of policy measures implemented by Sebi in the primary market segment during 2012-13.

The large-size IPOs (Initial Public Offers) as such attract a large number of individual investors.

Sebi's in-house study analysed 45 IPOs that hit the market during last two fiscals.

Their performance was analysed against the backdrop of various primary market reforms undertaken by Sebi during 2012-13.

Out of these 45 IPOs, four were withdrawn and four others were of large size with applications received from more than two lakh investors.

Several measures such as minimum allotment to retail investors, electronic bidding for IPO shares, extending the reach of ASBA (Application Supported by Blocked Amount), were implemented by Sebi in 2012-13 to revive the subdued primary market and boost the investor confidence.

The analysis of all these 45 issues found that the average number of retail investors applying for shares rose to 1,16,907 per issue in the post-reform period (October 1, 2012 - March 31, 2013), from an average of 37,626 in the pre-reform period (April 1, 2011 - September 30, 2012).

After excluding the withdrawn IPOs and large issues, the analysis of remaining 37 issues showed that the average number of retail investors per issue rose from 6,486 to 64,595. The average subscription by retail investors also rose from Rs 70.70 crore to Rs 190.3 crore in this category.

The analysis of the four large IPOs showed that the average number of retail investors in these issues rose from 2.58 lakh to 3.26 lakh per issue.

Among various reforms, Sebi has introduced an e-IPO mechanism through which investments can be done online without signing any physical documents. This has helped fast-track the public offer processing time.

On account of streamlining of process and other external factors, the average time taken for processing offer documents has also come down from 152 days to 48 days, Sebi said.

"The facility to procure IPO form and submit it, is now available to investors in more than 1,000 locations on account of Sebi circular on use of stock broker network of stock exchanges for submitting applications in public issuances," the market regulator said.

It further said: "The investors are now directly able to submit ASBA applications in more than 67,000 bank branches as against less than 10,000 branches that existed before..."