Despite the fact that IPOs are thought-about the first liquidity occasion, knowledge over the previous 5 years reveals that traders have realized a considerably bigger exit worth by means of post-listing bulk and block offers than by means of the offer-for-sale (OFS) section of an IPO.
Since 2024, there have been 43 PE- and VC-backed IPOs the place shares price ₹58,000 crore-59,000 crore have been bought by means of the OFS route, knowledge from Prime Database confirmed. This was about one-third of the just about ₹1.9 lakh crore price of shares bought by means of post-listing bulk and block offers.
An OFS throughout an IPO permits the promoters of an organization and its present traders together with PE and VC corporations to promote their shares to the general public. After itemizing, they’ve the choice to promote shares on the exchanges by means of bulk or block offers.
Over the previous two years alone, greater than 950 block offers have been executed, highlighting a rising desire amongst funds to defer giant exits till after itemizing amid risky valuations.
Whereas block offers peaked in 2024 and slowed in 2025, they slowly began to open up within the second half. Authorized consultants stated this was regular after a section of heavy monetization and didn’t replicate a structural constraint on exits.
Following a 12 months of aggressive sell-downs, funds are recalibrating the tempo of exits, stated Abhishek Guha, a accomplice at Trilegal.
“We count on to see many exits by means of block gross sales in 2026,” Guha added.
The latest wave of post-listing exits started in the direction of the top of 2023 and has continued since, barring transient pauses triggered by trade-related and geopolitical disruptions.
Widening hole
In 2021, traders bought shares price about ₹48,000 crore by means of OFS, in contrast with virtually ₹62,500 crore by means of post-IPO bulk and block trades, based on Prime Database. The hole between IPO-stage exits and post-listing exits has widened since then.
Mint’s evaluation of Enterprise Intelligence knowledge underscores this shift. In 2021, IPOs accounted for 12% of total PE exits, with block trades at 23%. In 2025, IPO exits shrank to eight% at the same time as block trades accounted for 30% of exits. The divergence was most pronounced in 2023, when block trades surged to 47% of complete exits, whereas IPO exits collapsed to a mere 6%.
As Mint reported final 12 months, promoting shareholders have more and more trimmed the OFS part of IPOs, opting to carry again stakes and pursue exits by means of block offers and secondary gross sales as soon as firms are listed.
“The block deal ecosystem was far much less lively 5 years in the past. What has modified is the depth of home liquidity, particularly from mutual funds, which at the moment are keen and capable of soak up giant secondary stakes,” stated Pranav Haldea, managing director at Prime Database Group.
He added that a number of personal fairness funds of older classic have now reached their exit section and block offers have emerged as a most popular mechanism for monetization.
Pricing management, mixed with discretion and velocity, has made block offers structurally extra engaging for big monetary traders, stated Guha.
“There’s far better flexibility in pricing since block offers are personal and negotiated,” Guha famous.
He highlighted that in block offers, the transactions are privately organized. Patrons are usually institutional and market impression is decrease.
“Block trades can usually be executed inside 24 hours, whereas OFS is a slower, process-driven route,” he added.
OFS limits
There are additionally limits to how a lot stake will be bought in an OFS throughout an IPO.
“If round 70% of an organization is held by traders, and at most 25% of that may be bought at IPO, you’re looking at roughly 15-16% that may realistically be liquidated by means of OFS,” stated Vikram Gawande, an investor at Blume Ventures.
Whereas bulk and block trades are structurally bigger than OFS transactions, the widening divergence between listing-stage exits and post-listing offers factors to a behavioural shift in how personal market traders are sequencing liquidity.
The share of PE and VC exits routed by means of IPOs stood at about 64% in 2021. Over the previous two years, that determine has dropped sharply to a mean of about 28%, indicating a better reliance on post-listing exits.
Specialists famous that that is partly as a result of possession buildings have additionally shifted. Most PEs right this moment maintain controlling stakes, which makes a full exit at IPO structurally not possible, stated Guha of Trilegal.
Because of this, IPOs more and more perform as the primary liquidity occasion moderately than the ultimate one.