The NSE board will meet on February 6 to form the IPO panel

The National Stock Exchange (NSE) board will meet on February 6 to formally initiate the process of the much-awaited initial public offering (IPO), following approval by market watchdog Sebi. At the meeting, the board is expected to form a specialized IPO committee that will serve as the central authority for the listing, market sources said on Wednesday.

This committee will be charged with defining the listing procedures and establishing the criteria for appointing the merchant bankers and legal advisors required to prepare the Red Herring Prospectus (DRHP), she added.In addition, the board will review and approve the exchange’s unaudited financial results for the quarter and nine-month period ending December 2025.

On Friday, Sebi granted a No Objection Certificate (NOC) to the NSE to go ahead with its IPO after a decade of delays due to regulatory concerns and co-location controversies.

The listing plans of the country’s largest exchange, the NSE, remained on hold since 2016, when the exchange first filed draft offer documents to raise around Rs 10,000 crore through an offer for sale by existing shareholders.

However, Sebi denied approval citing regulatory concerns arising from governance lapses and the co-location case. Since then, NSE has approached the regulator several times seeking permission. Last month, Sebi chairman Tuhin Kanta Pandey said the regulator granted “in-principle” approval to NSE’s settlement application in the unfair market access case, a major development seen as paving the way for the exchange’s initial public offering.

Pandey also indicated that the NOC could be issued in about a month.

NSE submitted its plea for a settlement in June 2025. The exchange’s IPO plans stalled due to the co-location case, in which certain brokers were accused of getting preferential access to the exchange’s trading systems.

After years of litigation, NSE in 2025 offered to pay Rs 1,388 crore to settle the charges and proceed with the listing process.

The proposed IPO is expected to be one of the largest in the Indian capital markets.

NSE, which has around 1.77 lakh shareholders, is valued at over Rs 5 lakh crore in the gray market, analysts believe.

NSE Managing Director and CEO Ashish Kumar Chauhan had earlier described the in-principle approval as a positive signal, although he said no formal communication had been received at the time.

“Once we receive the NOC, we will follow the conditions mentioned in the announcement and start preparations for filing the draft red herring prospectus (DRHP),” Chauhan had told PTI Videos.

He had stated that after receiving Sebi’s NOC, it could take up to four months for the DRHP to be filed, which would then require regulatory approval.

The IPO itself could hit the market around seven to eight months after the NOC, he had stated.

In March 2025, Sebi formed an internal committee to examine NSE’s listing proposal.