As the National Stock Exchange (NSE) turns its sights to a Dalal Street debut after closing its IPO subscription window, investor attention is spilling over to smaller, unlisted exchanges that have seen sharp gains this year.
The mega IPO drew around Rs 90,000 crore in demand, setting a new subscription benchmark among India’s five largest offerings, as qualified institutional buyers (QIBs) stepped up bidding on the final day.
The NSE is set to list on the BSE on September 24. Meanwhile, shares of the Metropolitan Stock Exchange of India (MSEI) and Calcutta Stock Exchange (CSE) have rallied sharply in the unlisted market in 2026.
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According to data shared by Unlisted Arena, MSEI shares have risen about 108% year-to-date, from around Rs 3.25 at the start of 2026 to Rs 6.70-6.75 currently. The stock was priced at about Rs 1.20 in September 2021 and was around Rs 3.80 a year ago, the data showed.
CSE shares have also seen a sharp increase. Unlisted Arena data puts the current price at around Rs 2,600, compared with approximately Rs 1,500 in January-February 2026. The stock was around Rs 850 in 2021, according to the data.
Manan Doshi, co-founder of Unlisted Arena, said MSEI shares are among the most traded unlisted stocks in India and have been in focus following investments by Zerodha, Groww and other brokers.
“Since then, we have seen the stock move on both sides, depending largely on the sentiment around developments at the exchange,” Doshi said.
Recent media reports about leading brokers potentially testing integration with MSEI and offering clients an option to trade on the exchange have renewed investor interest, he said.
“Going ahead, it will be important to see what shape these efforts take and, more importantly, how the exchange’s plans to become a full-fledged exchange actually progress,” Doshi said.
CSE has also attracted investor interest amid plans to revive the exchange, Doshi said. “It remains to be seen how the revival plans take shape and whether they can translate into meaningful activity on the exchange,” he added.
Krishna Patwari, founder and managing director of Wealth Wisdom India, attributed the recent interest in MSEI and CSE to three factors: the NSE IPO, developments around CSE's revival and developments at MSEI.
“With India's largest exchange having filed its draft prospectus with SEBI, investors are looking for other ways to get exposure to market infrastructure, and that has put these two exchanges in focus,” Patwari said.
CSE revival
On CSE, Patwari said the West Bengal finance minister announced on June 22, 2026 that the state would support reviving the exchange. CSE's unlisted price subsequently moved from about Rs 900 in early June to around Rs 2,700, he said.
According to Patwari, CSE's board, in its August 19 annual report, decided to ask SEBI to keep its February 2025 voluntary-exit application on hold. The board has also recommended a 1:2 bonus issue, he said.
Patwari also pointed to CSE's financials, saying the exchange booked a one-off gain of Rs 249.28 crore from sub-leasing three acres at E.M. Bypass for Rs 253 crore. This took its FY26 net worth to about Rs 406 crore, against a market capitalisation of around Rs 167 crore, he said.
However, CSE's trading platform has been idle since April 2013, Patwari noted. The exchange still has 1,507 listed companies and around 500 registered brokers, but restarting the platform would require SEBI approval and an anchor investor meeting capital and fit-and-proper requirements, he said.
CSE's FY26 profit of about Rs 216 crore came almost entirely from the one-time land gain, according to Patwari. Excluding that gain, revenue was about Rs 22 crore and core operations were loss-making, he said.
The land proceeds are held in an escrow account with a SEBI lien for exit-related liabilities, Patwari added.
MSEI gains traction
MSEI, meanwhile, is an operating regulated exchange, Patwari said. Its FY26 revenue rose to Rs 59 crore from Rs 17 crore, while its loss before tax narrowed to Rs 26 crore from Rs 35 crore a year earlier.
Its net worth increased from Rs 397 crore to Rs 1,369 crore following fresh equity, he said.
MSEI also recently enabled a tokenised corporate bond issuance on its Electronic Bond Platform under SEBI's Demat 2.0 pilot, using blockchain-based distributed ledger technology, according to Patwari.
The first transaction was IIFL Finance's Rs 25 crore issue, settled against the RBI's wholesale digital rupee.
Patwari said the initiative is currently institutional-only, with secondary-market trading and retail access planned for later phases. NSE has also conducted its own Rs 1,000 crore tokenised issuance involving REC and L&T, he noted, describing MSEI's initiative as part of a shared pilot rather than an exclusive advantage.
On valuations, Patwari said MSEI's market capitalisation is around Rs 7,587 crore, or about 5.5 times book value, on a Rs 59 crore revenue base.
He also pointed to volatility in MSEI's unlisted price, which rose from around Rs 3 to a peak of Rs 13 around the turn of 2024-25 before giving back roughly half of those gains.
For CSE, any revival would require SEBI clearance and an anchor investor, while for MSEI, real trading volumes and secondary bond trading would be important milestones, Patwari said.
“Unlisted shares are not exchange-traded, so liquidity is thin and investors should size positions accordingly,” Patwari said.
Disclosure: This article has been written by Kumar Gaurav, who is not a SEBI-registered Research Analyst or an Investment Adviser. Gaurav and their ‘relative(s)’ (as defined under Section 2(77) of the Companies Act, 2013) do not hold any financial interest in the companies mentioned in this article as of the date of publication. The views/recommendations mentioned in this article, wherever applicable, are those of the respective SEBI-registered Research Analyst/brokerage and have been reproduced/reported with due attribution. They should not be construed as the views or recommendations of The Economic Times Digital or the journalist. Readers are advised to consider the original research report and make their investment decisions based on their own assessment. Brokerage disclaimers here
