India’s biggest stock exchange just filed the paperwork to list itself. Here’s what the Draft Red Herring Prospectus actually says – no rumours, just the filing.
This isn’t a fresh fundraise. It’s a pure ownership sale.
On June 17, 2026, National Stock Exchange of India Limited (NSE) filed a Draft Red Herring Prospectus with SEBI for an Offer for Sale (OFS) of up to 14,89,05,525 equity shares of face value ₹1 each. There is no fresh issue component – NSE itself will not receive a single rupee from this IPO. Every share sold belongs to an existing shareholder cashing out part of their stake.
That distinction matters. In a fresh issue, the company raises capital for growth, debt repayment, or expansion. Here, the entire proceeds go to the selling shareholders – largely public-sector banks, insurers, and foreign institutional investors who have held NSE stock for years, long before it was tradeable on any exchange.
NSE has proposed to list on BSE – its closest rival – rather than on itself, since a stock exchange listing its own shares on its own platform would be a conflict of interest.
NSE by the numbers (as of March 31, 2026)
Founded in November 1992, NSE has grown into the largest stock exchange in India by turnover in cash market and equity derivatives every year since Fiscal 2001. The scale is genuinely hard to compress into a headline.
Revenue held up. Profit didn’t – and the DRHP tells you exactly why.
NSE’s restated consolidated numbers show revenue from operations dipping slightly in FY26, and profit falling more sharply – a direct result of SEBI’s derivatives-market tightening through 2024 and 2025.
| Particulars (₹ crore) | FY2024 | FY2025 | FY2026 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue from operations | 14,780.01 | 17,140.68 | 16,601.31 |
| Total income | 16,352.06 | 19,176.83 | 18,713.37 |
| Profit for the year | 8,305.74 | 12,187.69 | 10,302.06 |
| Basic & diluted EPS (₹) | 33.56 | 49.24 | 41.62 |
| Total assets (as at year-end) | 65,463.98 | 69,466.64 | 87,937.44 |
| Core Settlement Guarantee Fund | 8,857.24 | 12,075.25 | 13,079.15 |
Figures converted from ₹ million (as reported in the DRHP’s Restated Consolidated Financial Information) to ₹ crore for readability. Weighted average EPS across FY24–FY26 (per the DRHP’s quantitative factors, weighted 1:2:3): ₹42.82.
Nearly four of every five rupees come from transaction charges
This is the single most important number for understanding NSE’s risk profile: revenue is heavily concentrated in trading-linked transaction charges – and within that, options premium turnover alone.
Within transaction charges specifically, the options business alone contributed 60.22% of total revenue from operations in FY26 (down from 64.62% in FY24), with futures adding another 8.92%. That’s why SEBI’s October 2024 and May 2025 circulars tightening the equity derivatives framework – upfront premium collection, larger contract sizes, fewer weekly expiries – show up directly in NSE’s own numbers as lower Average Daily Trading Volume in equity futures and options through FY26.
The top 10 selling shareholders account for 79.85% of the entire OFS. Group them by type, and a clear pattern emerges – this is old, legacy institutional ownership dating back to NSE’s founding-era shareholding, not a promoter or VC exit.
| Selling shareholder | Shares offered | Weighted avg. cost/share |
|---|---|---|
| State Bank of India | 2,47,50,000 | ₹0.80 |
| MS Strategic (Mauritius) Ltd | 1,60,00,000 | ₹66.54 |
| Canada Pension Plan Investment Board | 1,18,74,060 | ₹324.13 |
| Aranda Investments (Mauritius) Pte Ltd | 1,12,46,336 | ₹62.38 |
| Bank of Baroda | 1,09,86,250 | ₹0.54 |
| Stock Holding Corporation of India | 1,08,90,000 | ₹0.46 |
| General Insurance Corporation of India | 1,06,58,000 | ₹5.26 |
| The New India Assurance Co. Ltd | 1,05,00,000 | ₹0.32 |
| National Insurance Company Ltd | 60,00,000 | ₹0.32 |
| United India Insurance Company Ltd | 60,00,000 | ₹0.50 |
Weighted average cost of acquisition per share as certified by Manian & Rao, Chartered Accountants, dated June 17, 2026. The wide spread in cost – from ₹0.32 to ₹324.13 – reflects decades of holding at very different entry points, further adjusted for NSE’s 4:1 bonus issue in 2024.
By number of trades, NSE is already the world’s busiest exchange
According to the World Federation of Exchanges data cited in the DRHP, NSE’s cash equity market recorded more individual trades in FY26 than Nasdaq or NYSE – though this is a trade-count comparison, not a comparison of traded value.
Number of trades in cash equities, Fiscal 2026, per World Federation of Exchanges data cited in the DRHP.
In equity derivatives, the gap is even starker: NSE (including NSE IFSC) processed 36.99 billion contracts in FY26 – good for a 51.18% global market share in contracts traded across equity derivatives, and an 11.38% share in cash-equity trade count.
Equity futures: 99.79%
Equity options: 74.71%
Currency futures: 99.48%
Currency options: 100.00%
293.85 million peak trades in a single day (June 4, 2024)
Zero reported data breaches across FY24, FY25 and FY26
What the DRHP itself flags as risk
Every DRHP carries a “Risk Factors” section, and NSE’s is unusually candid given its role as a market regulator. A few stand out.
