How Indian primary markets actually work.
A reference for IPOs, FPOs, OFS, QIPs, rights issues and buybacks. Every claim sourced to SEBI regulations, exchange rulebooks, or the primary documents on which the market actually runs. No tip-sheets, no allotment predictions, no grey-market chatter.
Foundations
What an IPO is, why companies list, how primary issue types differ — IPO, FPO, OFS, QIP, rights issue, buyback.
- WHAT AN IPO IS What is an IPO The first time a company sells its shares to the public — what actually happens, why a company does it, what changes afterwards, and how SEBI decides who is allowed to.
- THE PRIMARY-ISSUE FAMILY What is a buyback: the mirror image of an IPO How a company uses its own cash to buy its own shares back and cancel them — the two methods, the 25% cap, and the rule that makes the capital reduction real.
- THE PRIMARY-ISSUE FAMILY IPO, FPO, OFS, QIP, rights: the one map A company has a handful of distinct ways to raise equity from the market. Three yes/no questions sort all of them.
Mechanics
Book-building, price band, anchor book, retail / NII / QIB allotment, listing day, lock-in.
- PRIMARY MARKET MECHANICS From close to listing: the T+3 timeline What happens in the three working days between an IPO closing and its shares trading — when allotment is decided, when your money moves, and when you can finally sell.
- PRIMARY MARKET MECHANICS Book-building: how an IPO's price is set Why an IPO shows a price range instead of a price, what the band's hard limits are, and who turns the range into a single number.
- PRIMARY MARKET MECHANICS How IPO allotment actually works In an oversubscribed Indian IPO, every retail applicant has the same shot — whether they bid for one lot or fourteen. Here is how the allotment is engineered.
Regulation
SEBI ICDR, the DRHP and RHP, ASBA and UPI in public issues, insider trading, disclosure obligations.
- MARKET REGULATION Insider trading: what the law actually prohibits It is not about employees owning their company's stock. It is about information the public doesn't have — who holds it, and the two distinct things they cannot do with it.
- HOW AN IPO WORKS ASBA and UPI: how your IPO money is held Why your application money leaves your balance as a 'block' but isn't debited until allotment — and who the invisible parties (SCSB, sponsor bank, NPCI) actually are.
Glossary
Plain-English definitions of every term used elsewhere on the site.
In preparation.
Timeline
Indian primary-market regulation from 1947 to today, the key amendments, the issues that forced them.
In preparation.