Who owns the Indian stock exchanges?

Life Insurance Corporation of India or LIC is the largest institutional investor in the Indian stock market with stakes in many listed entities. But the insurance behemoth is a shareholder not only in the listed entities but also owns a sizeable stake in the platforms – stock exchanges, to be precise – on which the companies are listed. 

LIC is the single-largest shareholder of both BSE and the National Stock Exchange (NSE) with a stake of 5.6 per cent and 10.7 per cent, respectively, as per data from the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi). 

BSE is Asia’s oldest stock exchange with its origins going way back to the year 1875. Data from Sebi further shows that entities like Zerodha Broking (3.7 per cent), Siddharth Balachandran (3 per cent), MSPL (1.3 per cent) and S Gopalakrishnan (1.2 per cent) hold a stake of over one per cent each in bourse. 

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Further, entities like Jupiter India Fund, Vanguard Emerging Markets, Akshay Mehta, Integrated Core Strategies Asia and Vanguard Total International also hold a stake in Asia’s oldest exchange. 

In the case of NSE, while LIC is the single-largest shareholder, entities like Aranda Investments (Maurieus) Pte (5 per cent), Stock Holding Corporation of India (4.4 per cent), SBI Capital Markets (4.3 per cent), Veracity Investments (3.9 per cent), State Bank of India (3.2 per cent), Crown Capital (3.2 per cent), Pi Opportunities Fund (3 per cent) and Acacia Banyan Partners (2.5 per cent) are among the large shareholders. 

In all, foreign shareholders hold a cumulative stake of 18.1 per cent stake in BSE while NSE has its foreign shareholding pegged at 44.6 per cent, respectively, as per data from Sebi.  Meanwhile, individuals hold a stake of 50.9 per cent stake in BSE while such investors’ stake in NSE is 10.4 per cent. 

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Incidentally, there is a third stock exchange – Metropolitan Stock Exchange of India (MSEI) – as well but there in not much traction as the stock exchange arena has a duopoly with BSE and NSE with the latter having the dominant market share. 

MSEI counts among its largest shareholders entities like Multi Commodity Exchange of India (MCX), Siddharth Balachandran, Union Bank of India, IL&FS Financial Services, Trust Investment Advisors, Nemish Shah, SBI, Bank of Baroda and Punjab National Bank. 

While foreign shareholders have a stake of 7.5 per cent in MSEI, nearly 60 per cent stake is held by individuals with 15.1 per cent stake by corporate entities.