Indian companies set new record; equity fundraising nearly doubles to ₹3.71 lakh crore in FY25

Despite volatility in the equity markets in the second half of the current fiscal, fund raising by Indian companies through equity and debt reached all-time highs in financial year 2024-25. The overall public equity fundraising surged to ₹3.71 lakh crore in FY25, registering a significant growth of 92% from ₹1.90 lakh crore garnered in the previous fiscal, according to primedatabase.com, India’s premier database on the primary capital market.

If rights issues of ₹16,167 crore (including of InvITs/ReITs) were to be added, the overall equity fund raising nearly touched ₹3.88 lakh crore in 2024-25, says Pranav Haldea, Managing Director, PRIME Database Group.

Of the total equity fundraising, fresh capital stood at ₹2.34 lakh crore, which was 63% of the total amount, in comparison to 67% last year. The remaining ₹1.37 lakh crore was garnered through offers for sale (OFS). The OFS through stock exchanges, which is for dilution of promoters’ holdings, saw an increase of 29%, from ₹22,569 crore raised in 2023-24 to ₹30,741 crore raised this year. Of this, the government’s divestment accounted for just ₹4,359 crore or 14% of the overall amount.

As per the data, mobilisation of resources through rights issues rose marginally to ₹14,452 crore from ₹14,189 crore in 2023-24. The largest rights issue of 2024-25 was from UPL ₹3,378 crore, accounting for 23% of the total amount. By number, 2024-25 witnessed 33 companies using the rights route in comparison to 21 companies in 2023-24. In addition, there was 1 rights issue of InvITs/ReITs, of IRB Infrastructure Trust, raising ₹1,715 crore.

IPO fundraise hits record high

The data showed that nearly half of the equity fundraising came via initial public offering (IPO) route as 78 Indian corporates raised an all-time high of ₹1,62,387 crore through main board IPOs in 2024-25. This was more than 2.5 times of ₹61,922 crore mobilised by 76 IPOs in 2023-24. 

The largest IPO in 2024-25 was from Hyundai Motor (₹27,859 crore), followed by Swiggy (₹11,327 crore) and NTPC Green Energy (₹10,000 crore). At the other end, the smallest IPO was from Kronox Lab Sciences raising just ₹130 crore. The average deal size increased 2.5 times to ₹2,082 crore, up from ₹815 crore last year.

Debt fundraising touches all-time high

According to Haldea, fund raising through debt also reached an all-time high of ₹11.12 lakh crore (including of Infrastructure Investment Trust / Real Estate Investment Trusts) of which ₹11.04 lakh crore was through private placement of debt and ₹8,044 crore through public bonds.

Public bonds market saw a decline with 44 issues raising ₹8,044 crore in comparison to 48 issues raising ₹20,787 crore last year. The largest issue was from Motilal Oswal Financial Services raising ₹1,000 crore.

In case of overseas bonds, Indian companies raised ₹4.55 lakh crore through overseas borrowing (including ECBs), up 2% from ₹4.47 lakh crore in 2023-24.

On the debt private placements front, the raised amount hit an all-time high of ₹10.79 lakh crore, up 6% from ₹10.20 lakh crore last year. This was mobilised by 1,033 institutions and corporates. The highest mobilisation through debt private placements was by NABARD (₹72,388 crore) followed by REC (₹57,826 crore) and PFC (₹50,077 crore). In addition, there were 19 debt private placements from InvITs/ReITs raising ₹25,585 crore.