The initial public offering (IPO) season is in full bloom. Across financial newspapers and television channels, familiar statistics flash by—Coal India Ltd’s $3.4 billion (around Rs.15,165 crore today) new share sale, the record Rs.57,536 crore raised by Indian companies in the equity markets this year, the new closing high of the Sensex at 21,004 and so on.
Here’s one which you may not have read so far: 360m. If the 12,000 draft red-herring prospectuses that Coal India printed were vertically stacked, the pile would be five times the height of Qutub Minar.
The state-owned company is just one among the 109 that have filed documents to raise money this year.
If the IPO documents of all 109 are piled up, at an average of 5,000 copies per company and an average 1.8cm thickness, it would create a stack some 9.8km high, about a kilometer taller than Mount Everest.
But that’s only one part of the story. How many people actually read these documents and what part do they play in helping them reach an investment decision?
Only about 1%, or say 50 people, on an average actually read them, said three investment bankers interviewed for this story.
Read an interesting report.
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