India’s IPO frenzy sends bankers in a work overdrive
Al Jazeera
Banks have raked in record fees, all the more significant in what has been a harrowing year as the virus ravaged India.
India’s investment bankers are set for their most rewarding year as local initial public offerings head for an all-time high despite the devastation brought about by a deadly Covid-19 wave.
Listings in Mumbai have already raised $10.2 billion this year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Banks steering those offerings have raked in record fees of almost 14 billion rupees ($189 million), more than double the amount they earned during the previous peak in 2017, figures provided by New Delhi-based Prime Database show.
The bumper pool of fees has become all the more significant for the bankers in an especially harrowing year. A massive surge in coronavirus infections in April and May reached the doorsteps of Mumbai’s urban affluent, a group that’s usually insulated from the country’s worst disasters. Bankers were among those who struggled to arrange oxygen tanks and intensive-care beds for loved ones, all the while juggling their workload in the midst of all the IPOs.
