Shares of JSW Infrastructure, India's No.2 commercial port operator, climbed as much as 31.4% in their first day of trading on Tuesday, valuing the company at 330.33 billion rupees ($3.97 billion).
The stock opened at 143 rupees, before jumping to a high of 157.3 rupees and holding above its initial public offer price (IPO) of 119 rupees. The broader market was down 0.5%.
JSW Infra is part of the billionaire Sajjan Jindal-led JSW Group and is the first business of the steel-to-software conglomerate to go public since JSW Energy in 2010.
The company follows a host of successful debutantes in the past few months -- ranging from wires and cables maker RR Kabel to Concord Biotech -- helped by robust investor appetite that has also powered the blue-chip stock market index to a record high.
So far this year, 277 Indian companies have gone public, raising $6.62 billion, compared with 172 companies that raised $10.53 billion in the same period last year, according to LSEG data.
JSW Infra raised 28 billion rupees through the sale of fresh shares. Jindal, his family trust and members of the promoter group -- an Indian market term for large shareholders who can influence company policy -- will have an 85.61% stake in the company.
JSW Infra's profit more than doubled to 7.50 billion rupees in fiscal 2023, while its revenue from operations jumped about 41% to 31.95 billion rupees, according to the prospectus.
The company plans to nearly double its operational capacity to 300 million tonnes per annum (MTPA) by 2030, but that would still trail Adani Ports's current capacity of about 558 MMTPA.
Adani Ports, a listed unit of billionaire Gautam Adani's namesake conglomerate, has a market value of about 1.78 trillion rupees.