India most successful IPO market in the world for 2024: Alex Clavel
Mumbai: SoftBank Investment Advisers co chief executive Alex Clavel rates India among its top performing markets, on the back of a spree of public listings by its portfolio firms. “India is the world’s most successful IPO market of 2024,” he said during an exclusive interaction with ET at SoftBank’s office in Mumbai. “Others, including the US, haven’t seen as many IPOs, even outside of tech.”
Clavel took over his new role at the Japanese conglomerate a year ago, jointly leading its investing vehicle SoftBank Vision Fund ( SVF) with Rajeev Misra. While Clavel spearheads SVF-II, Misra who stepped away from day-to-day operations in 2022 and later launched One Investment Management, oversees legacy investments from SVF-I. Clavel’s ascension coincided with a tightening of the ship at the Masayoshi Son-founded group after years of exuberance, amid a broader reset in the technology investing world.
‘Plenty of Opportunities in India’
“In the early days, there was some concern about the thin capital markets here. While we were excited about the opportunities, we questioned whether the IPO market would be large enough to provide liquidity for our exits,” said Clavel. “Fortunately, the capital markets in India have developed well, as progressive market regulations have stimulated capital flows and increased domestic liquidity, reducing our dependence on foreign markets like Hong Kong or the US.”
SoftBank portfolio firms FirstCry, Ola Electric and Unicommerce have gone public this year, and a $1.25-billion initial public
