Tapping capital markets: State govt felicitates 19 SMEs
Kolkata: The state MSME and Textiles department (MSME&T) felicitated 19 successful small and micro enterprises (SME) in the state who have successfully managed to raise funds through IPO mechanism using the National Stock Exchange’s (NSE) SME platform in collaboration with the MSME&T department.
“Access to timely and adequate finance is one of the most critical factors for growth of SMEs. We have felt that there is always a difficulty in arranging funds for growth, especially at a stage when the company is not able to take the risks of borrowing from the market or the banking institutions. There is always a sense of an alarm clock ticking when an SME avails loan from the bank because of the interest involved.
So, infusion of liquidity in the form of equity is an excellent alternative which is a patient capital and can be managed with the growth of the company. In this backdrop, in November 2023 during the Bengal Global Business Summit (BGBS), our department signed an MOU with the NSE for fundraising on its SME platform, which will enable us to handhold companies in the SME listing process,” said Rajesh Pandey, Additional Chief Secretary of MSME and Textiles department.
Pandey said that listing on the capital market shall help them raise capital to fuel their growth story and at the same time provide an opportunity to showcase their business to a larger set of investors through this NSE Emerge platform under the World Bank funded RAMP programme. The department along with the bourse’s SME platform has been conducting awareness drives through seminars, MSME camps, knowledge sessions, road shows, workshops to guide corporates and the efforts bore fruits with 19 companies getting themselves listed on the platform in a little over 18 months. In the last few years, a total of 37 SMEs have taken the IPO route to raise funds of around Rs 1,000 crore.
“This is the first time we have organised programmes to felicitate the SMEs and provided them a platform to share their experiences. They will be joining us in our following workshops for raising awareness in this regard and we are hopeful that it will encourage other SMEs to access funds via capital markets,” said Meghnad De, Special Secretary of the department.
Parvati Murthy, associate vice-president NSE who attended the ceremony from Mumbai said that currently, NSE’s SME Emerge platform has supported 673 companies from various sectors to get listed and total funds raised on the platform till date is around Rs 20,000 crore. The market capitalisation of these companies has been Rs 2,22,000 crore. “The listing has picked up post Covid and in the last two years over 300 companies have got listed,” she added.
