SEBI May Extend Pre-IPO Trading Window In Its Pilot Platform For Unlisted Shares

Market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India is likely mulling to extend the pre-IPO session in a bid to regulate the unlisted space, people in the know told NDTV Profit. The idea is to extend the small fifteen-minute pre-IPO session window to a three-day window between the IPO stock’s allotment and its listing, Profit was told.

The market watchdog has just started exploring the idea to tackle issues related to price discovery ahead of the initial public offerings, the sources said.

The three-day trading window between the IPO stock allotment and its listing sees a lot of frenzy and the regulator’s idea is to bury the gap here, one of the people quoted above mentioned.

The idea was also hinted at by the SEBI Chairperson, Tuhin Kanta Pandey, at a FICCI event on Aug 21.

"The IPO market is booming, but pre-listing information is often insufficient for investors," Pandey said at the FICCI Capital Market Conference 2025.

The pilot project will be a regulated platform. It will identify and remove unnecessary processes and pain points in fundraising, disclosures, and investor onboarding, he said.

It will explore emerging areas, products, and asset classes to boost both capital demand and supply.

However, the idea remains to be in the proposal stage and has not been put to discussion before SEBI’s Primary Market Advisory Committee. Once the structural details are finalised, the idea will be discussed in PMAC.

This is not the first time that this idea is being floated in the Indian markets. On Jan 21, 2025, Madhabi Puri Buch, then Chairperson of the market regulator, mentioned that the regulator was considering bringing in a 'when-listed' mechanism, which would allow the investors to trade their shares when a company is in the time period between completion of an IPO and listing.

Currently, as per the T+3 way, the investors get only three days from allotment of subscription to the listing day. However, as per Buch, even in this time a lot of curb trading takes place. Curb trading is the dealing of shares outside the designated trading hours or the traditional setting of stock exchanges.

However, at the time, no other details regarding how this will be done or the relevant timelines were available.