JPMorgan reclaims top spot in India ECM for the first time since 2020

By Rajesh Mascarenhas

  JPMorgan Chase & Co. has reclaimed the top spot in India’s equity offerings for the first time in five years, seizing the lead from Kotak Mahindra Capital Co. in one of the world’s busiest fundraising markets. 

The Wall Street bank’s market share has nearly doubled from a year ago to more than 11 per cent, after it was credited with ₹5,37,00 crore ($6 billion) in equity offerings in 2025, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. It climbed up four spots after advising on stake sale in some of the largest block trades this year, including stake sale in telecom firm Bharti Airtel Ltd. and IndiGo operator InterGlobe Aviation Ltd.

 

“We invested well in advance rather than waiting for the market to expand,” said Abhinav Bharti, head of equity capital markets at JPMorgan India. The bank has beefed up the size of its investment banking team to the biggest among global players in the nation, with a record boom in deals likely extending into coming years, he said.  

The return of a foreign bank as the top arranger comes as the pipeline of offerings expands, with companies raising nearly $55 billion this year from listings, share placements and block trades. Domestic banks still dominate first-time equity sales, which have hit record levels on strong inflows from local mutual funds and retail investors, while global banks are being favored for bulk trades typically placed with foreign institutional investors.

 

Citigroup Inc. is the second-biggest arranger of deals in India in 2025 with a 9.6 per cent market share, while Kotak slipped to the third spot after leading the charts for three straight years. The shift signals global banks’ ability to leverage their international network, balance-sheet capacity and cross-border execution.

 

While Kotak’s deal value was lower than JPMorgan, it arranged a higher number of offerings than any other bank during the year, including Tata Capital Ltd.’s $1.7 billion IPO and Hexaware Technologies Ltd.’s billion-dollar share sale, underscoring the dominance of domestic players in primary issuances.

 

“If you remove block deals, we are much much ahead of our competitor,” said V Jayasankar, managing director at Kotak. The bank is focused on large-cap IPOs of over ₹5,000 crore and has a significant share in the mid-cap space, he said.  

 

Among other banks, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and HSBC Holdings Plc also climbed up the rankings as they stepped up their India presence to capture the rising deal flow. Jefferies Group and Morgan Stanley slipped in the league table.  

(Disclosure: Entities controlled by the Kotak family have a significant holding in Business Standard Pvt Ltd)