Which Investors Drive IPO Oversubscription? QIB, NII and Retail Data

A single overall subscription figure hides who did the bidding. Behind "50 times" sit three separate books, each with its own quota: qualified institutional buyers (QIB), non-institutional investors (NII) and retail investors. Our earlier study of overall subscription and listing gains could only look at the combined number. Our records now hold the category-wise figures, so this study splits them apart.

Two questions: which category usually does the heavy lifting when an IPO is oversubscribed, and how closely did each category's figure move with the listing-day opening price?

Data and method

• Sample: 59 mainboard IPOs that listed between 17 August and 23 October 2026 and have final category-wise subscription figures in our records. Our full dataset for the period holds 135 IPOs; we checked for IPOs recorded twice under different names and found none.
• What was left out: only one SME IPO (SpectraA Technology Solutions) had category figures, so SME issues are excluded. One mainboard IPO, Acevector (Snapdeal), had no subscription figures.
• Categories: QIB; NII, which is split into bNII (bids above ₹10 lakh) and sNII (bids from ₹2 lakh to ₹10 lakh); and retail (bids up to ₹2 lakh). 21 of the 59 also had an employee reservation.
• Listing gain is the listing-day opening price compared with the issue price.
• All subscription figures are in "times" the shares on offer in that category. We use medians because a handful of 200 to 400 times books would distort averages.

How heavily each category was bid

The retail book was the least crowded of the three main categories by a wide margin. Its median of 13.56 times is roughly a quarter of the QIB and NII medians.

• QIB was bid more heavily than retail in 43 of the 59 IPOs (73%). In the median IPO, the QIB book was 3.1 times as oversubscribed as the retail book.
• NII was bid more heavily than retail in 51 of the 59. QIB beat NII in 34.
• Within NII, the bigger-ticket half usually led. bNII was higher than sNII in 40 of the 59.
• The most oversubscribed of the three main books was QIB in 32 IPOs, NII in 22 and retail in just 5.
• The least oversubscribed was retail in 40 IPOs, QIB in 14 and NII in 5.

The five IPOs where retail was the most crowded book were all thinly subscribed overall: Fusion CX (4.67 times overall), Nityas Gems & Jewellery (2.24), Sonaselection India (2.00), Manipal Payment & Identity Solutions (1.41) and Purple Style Labs (1.36). Retail led only when nobody was bidding heavily.

QIB books were either thin or packed

The QIB figures did not spread evenly. They split into two clusters:

45 of the 59 sat at either end: under 10 times or at 100 times and above. Only 14 landed in the 10 to 100 range. In this period, institutions tended either to fill the book with little to spare or to bid for many multiples of it. Our guide to how mutual funds and FPIs bid in IPOs explains why institutional bids are so large relative to the quota.

Each category against the listing gain

We sorted the 59 IPOs by each category's subscription and cut them into thirds.

Across all 59, the median listing gain was 10.0%; 8 opened below their issue price and 7 opened exactly at it.

Every category tells the same broad story. The least bid third opened roughly flat, the middle third opened 10% to 16% up, and the most bid third opened about a third higher. None of the 20 IPOs in any category's top third opened below issue price.

How strong is each link, in plain English?

A rank correlation runs from 0 (no relationship) to 1 (a perfect one). The last column is an easier way to read the same thing: pick two of the 59 IPOs, and in about four pairs out of five the one with the higher QIB figure also opened with the higher gain. For retail it was closer to three in four.

So in this sample the QIB figure moved most closely with the listing outcome and the retail figure least, but the differences are modest. There is a bigger reason not to read too much into the ranking: the categories move together. The rank correlation between NII and retail subscription was 0.95, between QIB and NII 0.81, and between QIB and retail 0.72. When one book is crowded the others usually are too, so 59 IPOs cannot separate the effect of one category from another. And none of this is cause and effect. Heavy bidding and a strong opening are more likely two signs of the same underlying demand.

The exceptions

Crowded non-institutional and retail books, thin QIB, flat opening. Rays of Belief (Mom's Belief) drew 278.97 times in NII and 193.47 times in retail, the highest retail figure in the sample, but only 9.06 times from QIBs. It opened at its issue price of ₹239.

Crowded QIB books that opened flat or lower:

Crowded QIB books, quiet retail, strong opening. Dhoot Transmission drew 209.02 times from QIBs and 8.25 times from retail, and opened at ₹1,200 against ₹871 (+37.8%). Milky Mist Dairy Food (164.03 times QIB, 8.73 times retail) opened at ₹165 against ₹140 (+17.9%).

Everything crowded. The largest opening in the sample, Tempsens Instruments (India), had 302.88 times QIB, 314.29 times NII and 60.40 times retail, and opened at ₹634 against ₹300 (+111.3%).

Why the overall figure follows the big books

The overall number is weighted by the size of each category's quota, which is set out in the RHP. When the QIB and NII portions are large and heavily bid, they dominate the total even if the retail book is only a few times covered. That is why a headline "46 times" can sit alongside a retail figure in single digits. Our guide to reading subscription status shows where to find the category-wise numbers, and sNII vs bNII explains the two halves of the NII book.

Honest caveats

• Mainboard only. Category figures exist for just one SME IPO in our records.
• 59 IPOs over about ten weeks. Each third holds 19 or 20 IPOs, so one or two different results would move a median noticeably.
• Final figures only. We use the end-of-bidding numbers. They say nothing to someone looking at day one or day two of an issue.
• Recorded figures. Subscription is as recorded by us and may differ slightly from the exchanges' final reconciled numbers.
• Anchor portion and quota sizes are not modelled. We compare the times-covered figures as reported; we have not weighted them by how many shares each category was offered.
• No forecast. This describes 59 past listings. It does not say how any future IPO will list.

Disclaimer: This article is for educational purposes only and is not investment advice. Read the RHP and consult a SEBI-registered adviser before investing.