India is about to get two of the largest IPOs. Jio and the NSE, within months of each other. Both are pure offer-for-sale deals and no fresh capital is being raised.
Foreign investors in both companies, including Meta, Google, KKR, Vista Equity, and the sovereign funds of Abu Dhabi, Saudi Arabia and Singapore, collectively hold somewhere between $75bn and $85bn in stock.
Once these listings clear, almost all of it is free to leave. That is close to a tenth of India’s entire forex reserves, potentially bleeding out over two to three years as lock-ups lapse.
What I feel is this, every month, crores of ordinary retail guys are putting money into SIPs thinking they are building long-term wealth. But after reading all this, it somehow feels like that money is also becoming the liquidity helping some of the world’s largest funds quietly exit India.
The government cannot stop foreigners from cashing out. Wondering how this gets played out.
