Elevate Campuses shares made a muted debut on stock exchanges today, September 30, listing at a discount of 1.9% to the issue price after the company's ₹2,100-crore initial public offering received 1.79 times subscription during its three-day bidding period. The stock opened at ₹355.10 on NSE, down 1.91% from its issue price of ₹362 per share, and was trading at ₹362.50 at 10:15 am IST after listing. The listing values the company at ₹5,995 crore ($624.74 million), below its IPO valuation of around ₹6,100 crore. Ahead of the listing, Elevate Campuses shares were trading at ₹368.5 in the grey market, signalling an upside of 1.80% but the actual listing performance fell short of these expectations. Following the listing, the company's market capitalisation stood at around ₹6,008.13 crore. The IPO received bids for 60.28 million shares against 33.67 million shares on offer, with shares scheduled to be credited to successful applicants on September 28 and list on both exchanges on September 30.
The qualified institutional buyers (QIBs) portion was subscribed 2.52 times, making it the strongest category in the final subscription data. The non-institutional investor (NII) category received 0.84 times subscription, while the retail individual investors (RIIs) subscribed 1.01 times. The IPO had a price band of ₹343-362 per share and comprised an entirely fresh issue of 5.80 crore equity shares, aggregating to ₹2,100 crore. There was no offer-for-sale component, with the minimum lot size set at 41 shares, requiring a retail investor to invest ₹14,842 at the upper end of the price band. The issue was managed by JM Financial, IIFL Capital Services and Morgan Stanley India as book-running lead managers, with KFin Technologies serving as the registrar.
Ahead of the listing, Elevate Campuses shares were commanding a grey market premium (GMP) of around ₹6.5 in the morning, indicating expectations of a premium listing. However, the actual listing performance fell short of these expectations, with the stock listing at a discount of 1.9% to the issue price. The GMP is an unofficial indicator based on activity in the grey market and can change before listing, with no guarantee of actual listing price or post-listing returns. The listing was below the grey market indications, despite the premium expectations based on the GMP data, with the stock opening at ₹355.10 on NSE and trading at ₹362.50 after listing. The listing values the company at ₹5,995 crore ($624.74 million), below its IPO valuation of around ₹6,100 crore.
Ahead of the public issue, Elevate Campuses raised ₹945 crore from anchor investors on September 22. The company allotted 2.61 crore shares to 40 anchor investors at ₹362 apiece. Of the total allocation, 1.65 crore shares, or 63.49%, were allotted to eight domestic mutual funds through 24 schemes. The investors included SBI Mutual Fund, HDFC AMC, WhiteOak Capital, Mirae Asset, Bandhan Mutual Fund, PGIM India, Edelweiss and Groww Mutual Fund. Global investors such as Norway's Government Pension Fund Global, Tata AIG, Citigroup, BofA Securities, Societe Generale, Integrated Core Strategies (Asia), Amundi Funds and Government Pension Fund Global also participated in the anchor allocation. Following the IPO, the promoter stake will fall to 65.58% from complete ownership before the issue.
The company plans to use ₹1,100 crore from the IPO proceeds to acquire 16 K-12 entities and campuses from the promoter group and its connected entities. The remaining proceeds will be deployed towards unidentified acquisitions, other inorganic growth opportunities and general corporate purposes. The share sale was entirely a fresh issue aggregating up to ₹2,100 crore, with proceeds intended to fund the acquisition of 16 school infrastructures across Dubai, Hyderabad, Chennai and Pune. Incorporated in 2005, Elevate Campuses is an education infrastructure company engaged in owning, operating and managing on-campus student accommodation for higher education institutions (HEIs), as well as owning K-12 school assets. The company operates its student accommodation business under the Good Host Spaces and ScholarZ brands, with its portfolio including seven owned student accommodation campuses with 20,368 beds across six Indian cities and 14 managed campuses with 55,487 beds.
During financial year 2026, Elevate Campuses reported a 32.2% year-on-year increase in revenue to ₹806.9 crore, compared with ₹610.5 crore in financial year 2025. Its EBITDA margin expanded sharply to 85.9% in financial year 2026 from 66.5% a year earlier. Profitability also more than tripled to ₹207 crore from ₹68.1 crore in financial year 2025. The company has expanded its owned student accommodation portfolio from 9,153 beds when it began operations as an independent owner and operator in FY2018 to 20,368 beds as of March 31, 2026, with its owned student accommodation portfolio recording an occupancy rate of 89.37% for Academic Year 2025-26. Revenue from operations increased from ₹347.0 crore in FY24 to ₹369.8 crore in FY25 and ₹568.6 crore in FY26, while EBITDA grew from ₹214.6 crore to ₹242.8 crore and ₹405.3 crore respectively, and PAT rose from ₹39.7 crore to ₹49.7 crore and ₹173.8 crore.
