50 SMEs raise Rs 660 cr in Jan-Jul 2017 period; three times the funds raised in the year-ago period

Mumbai, July 17 (KNN) Reflecting the increasing interest of investors in SMEs, as many as 50 small and medium enterprises (SMEs) raised Rs 660 crore through initial public offers (IPOs) in January-June 2017.

This is more than three times the funds raised in the year-ago period.

Funds raised through the issue were used for business expansion plans, working capital requirements and other general corporate purposes.

A total of 50 companies got listed with IPOs worth Rs660 crore in the first six months of the year as compared to 27 firms which joined the bourse and raised Rs 211 crore in January-June 2016.

In the entire 2016, as many as 66 firms debuted on the SME platform and raised Rs540 crore through initial share-sale offers.

Geographically, Gujarat was leading with 22 firms from the state alone on SME bourses, followed by Maharashtra (15), Rajasthan (4) and two each from West Bengal and Delhi.

Further, average issue size doubled to Rs13.2 crore in the first six months of this year from Rs7.82 crore in January-June 2016.

The companies which got listed during the period under review are from sectors like finance; media and entertainment; real estate and infrastructure; manufacturing; agriculture; aquaculture; food and processing; and IT and IT-enabled services.

BSE and NSE had launched SME platforms in March 2012, becoming the only two bourses to offer such a segment in the country.

Since then, 185 companies got listed on BSE and 61 on NSE. Out of these 246 SMEs, 31 have already migrated to main platform and 36 more are eligible for migration but have stayed on SME’s exchange platform.