LG Electronics India shares surge 50% on market debut after bumper IPO

LG Electronics India’s shares surged 50% on their market debut Tuesday, after the company’s initial public offering saw the strongest demand for an Indian IPO since 2008, led by institutional investors.

Its shares opened at 1,710 rupees. The IPO was priced at the top end of the 1,080 rupee to 1,140 rupee apiece band, fetching 116 billion rupees ($1.3 billion), and was oversubscribed more than 54 times, attracting bids worth about 4.4 trillion rupees or nearly $50 billion, exchange data revealed.

This was the most heavily subscribed major Indian IPO since Reliance Power’s listing in 2008, PRIME Database’s Pranav Haldea told CNBC. It saw massive demand from qualified institutional buyers, who bid 166 times their allotted portion. Retail investor portion was oversubscribed 3.55 times.

The IPO was structured as an offer for sale — no new shares were issued — with parent LG Electronics selling 101.8 million shares. It was managed by a consortium of international and domestic bookrunners, including Morgan Stanley, J.P. Morgan, Axis Capital, BofA Securities, and Citigroup Global Markets India.

Shares began trading Tuesday on the National Stock Exchange of India as well as the BSE.

This is the second major South Korean company that has tapped Indian markets in about a year, after Hyundai Motor India’s listing in October 2024.

LG Electronics India is a unit of South Korea’s LG Electronics. It designs, manufactures, and markets a wide range of consumer electronics and home appliances such as refrigerators, air conditioners, washing machines, televisions, and smart home devices.

“LG Electronics India stands out as the listed appliance player with the widest offerings and are popular in most of the product categories they are present in,” said Himanshu Dugar, a SEBI-registered independent equity research analyst.

According to Redseer Strategy Consultants, India’s electronics and appliances market is projected to almost double from about $75 billion in 2024 to roughly $130 billion to $150 billion by 2029. “Accordingly, we expect LG Electronics India, as the market leader, will benefit from these tailwinds,” said Dugar.

India continues to rank among the world’s busiest IPO markets this year. EY’s latest global report shows the country logged 146 offerings in the third quarter, raising $7.2 billion. That brought the nine-month tally to 254 deals worth $11.8 billion, underscoring the depth of its domestic capital markets, with IPO returns standing at 17.5%.

—CNBC’s Lim Hui Jie contributed to this report.