These 6 SME IPOs made no sense but D-Street loved them anyway

It's like negotiating a Rs 1 lakh raise with HR and getting offered Rs 25 crore instead-a pipedream for most of us but a reality for many small and medium enterprises (SMEs) taking the IPO route. Nearly 46 per cent of all SME IPOs in the last year have been subscribed over 100 times! That means that for a Rs 10 crore fundraising, companies have gotten bids of Rs 1,000 crore. Here's another figure that captures just how wild the ongoing frenzy is-Rs 14,000 crore has been raised from SME IPOs since 2012, nearly 43 per cent of which was raised in FY24 alone! Clearly, all well-established dictums of equity investing are falling flat. The fear of missing out on bumper listing gains, which were recently capped by stock exchanges at 90 per cent, is trumping all caution, even when the quality of these mom-and-pop style businesses lacks serious credibility, and the pace at which they are cropping up raises concerns. There's little to wonder why the listing norms have only been getting tighter recently, and market regulator SEBI has been issuing advisories. But investors are paying no heed whatsoever. The below list captures this. We have laid