(Feb 25): Tata Capital Ltd said it’s planning to go public in what may be one of India’s largest initial public offerings of the year.

The financial unit of the Tata Group plans to sell 230 million new shares in the IPO and tack on a rights offering for existing shareholders, the company said in an exchange filing Tuesday. Though it didn’t specify the value of the total offering, MoneyControl has reported that Tata Capital was planning to raise at least 150 billion rupees (RM7.6 billion) via an IPO.

That would exceed the US$1.5 billion (RM6.63 billion) that LG Electronics Inc’s Indian unit has been said to be seeking for going public, possibly making Tata Capital the country’s biggest such deal this year. India’s IPO market has defied the recent slump in Indian stocks, with companies continuing to list their shares at a pace echoing last year’s record proceeds.

A company representative didn’t respond to queries. As part of the fundraising, Tata Capital said the rights-offering portion of the deal will aim to sell 15 billion rupees of stock.

Tata Capital is poised to be the latest unit from the US$165 billion Tata Group, which makes everything from table salt to Jaguar sports cars, to go public since Tata Technologies Ltd. Tata Tech more than doubled on its first day of trading in 2023, resulting in the best-ever debut for any Indian float, raising more than US$300 million, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

News of the IPO helped drive up shares of Tata Investment Corp, which jumped as much as 10% after the announcement. The company held 80.7 million shares of Tata Capital as of March 31, according to its annual report.

As to Tata Capital, some of its shares are available on Indian platforms that offer trading of unlisted stocks. They’re currently priced at levels that value the company at 13 times its book value, which looks expensive relative to comparable companies, according to Manan Doshi, co-founder of Unlisted Arena, where people can trade shares of companies before they go public.

India’s IPO market raised more than US$20 billion last year, second only to the US, after record-breaking deals such as those of Hyundai Motor Co’s local unit and two others that exceeded US$1 billion.

The market is off to a good start in 2025, with Hexaware Technologies Ltd recently listing after the country’s first billion-dollar IPO. And the local securities regulator has said it’s currently processing more than 60 IPO applications.

Headquartered in Mumbai, Tata Capital also has offices in Singapore and London. It manages loans of more than 1.5 trillion rupees, with smaller businesses and individual borrowers making up for the majority of its business, according to its website.

Tata Capital caters to the diverse needs of retail, housing, small and medium enterprises and corporate customers across India with a network of over 900 branches. Its wide range of offerings includes credit cards, consumer finance, microfinance and private equity.

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