A $200 Million-an-Hour IPO Boom Transforms India’s Stock Market

Six-and-a-half hours. That’s all it took for LG Electronics India Ltd.’s $1.3 billion initial public offering to be fully sold on Oct. 7, marking the fastest take-up in 17 years among major Indian IPOs.

It’s offerings like LG’s, the nation’s third biggest for this year, that have made India one of the world’s hottest IPO venues, with total proceeds hurtling toward last year’s record tally of $21 billion.

Yet the current listings wave isn’t just about volumes. It’s also about who’s buying these new stocks.

LG Electronics India Ltd.’s listing ceremony at the National Stock Exchange (NSE) in Mumbai on Oct. 14.

Photographer: Dhiraj Singh/Bloomberg

A rapidly expanding pool of money from domestic mutual funds, insurers and millions of ...