Russia’s Ukraine invasion may give India’s upcoming IPOs some cold feet

• Relentless FII selling, initiation of a war between two countries and high inflation has sucked out investors’ risk appetite leading to people selling stocks across the globe in a panic.
• All this has spoiled the market’s mood and their ability to put in fresh money even for their favourite initial public offering (IPOs).
• More than 10 companies in India are in line to launch their public issues anytime soon.

The Indian equity markets are witnessing one of the biggest crashes in history as Russia declares a war on Ukraine. Indian markets, on Thursday, wiped out $177 billion of investors' money as Sensex tumbled nearly 5%.

All because Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a military operation in Ukraine despite the US and western countries insisting on imposing sanctions and indicating not to invade.

Initiation of a war between the two countries seems to have sucked out investors’ risk appetite leading to people selling stocks across the globe in a panic.

The Russia-Ukraine crisis added to the already reeling market worrying over high inflation and expectations of aggressive interest rate hike by the US Fed, which triggered losses in Indian markets as foreign institutional investors (FII) continued to scoop out their money from here for five straight months.

All this has spoiled the market’s mood and risk appetite of investors to put in fresh money even for their favourite initial public offering (IPOs).

It is true that the companies are delaying their IPO launches because of the weak market environment and the wave would only return if markets get a bit better, as per Ajay Saraf, head of investment banking and institutional equities at ICICI Securities.

Here are some of the IPOs expected to come out soon
(Source: Angel One)

Analysts believe that many IPOs are getting delayed because of following reasons -- geopolitical risk of Russia Ukraine war looming, frequent selling by FIIs and weak market conditions and the upcoming mammoth IPP from LIC.

Companies fear that IPOs won’t get a good response and remain undersubscribed, which may also lead to weak listing gains.

“Companies that have filed for IPOs are delaying their procedures due to the upcoming massive LIC IPO. The timelines for LIC IPO have been informed well in advance and it is advised that companies avoid clashing with timings of LIC IPO, as it will create weak liquidity for other IPOs. Some managements have indicated they will be delaying their issues and waiting for the LIC IPO to get over, by not delaying there are chances that IPOs may be undersubscribed and give out weak listing gains,” said Manoj Dalmia, founder and director at Proficient Equities.

So far in 2022, only three IPOs have been listed in India’s exchanges out of which two of them opened on a weak note. Further, it is noticeable that companies are in a wait-and-watch zone for market sentiment to get a bit better before they launch their IPOs.

“The weak market sentiment has deferred listing of companies whose valuation may need to be reconsidered against the backdrop of sharp corrections in some recently listed stocks which were overvalued,” said Neha Khanna, director at ValPro.

Vijay Chandok, managing director and chief executive at ICICI Securities believes that crude oil trajectory also will be a key factor to watch out for, going ahead. “We don’t expect major sanctions which may drive [a] big spike in crude, equally harming Europe and US, or even in terms of aggressive rate hike leading to slower economic growth. We, thus, believe that market stabilisation is likely in the short term,” said Chandok.

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