India is in the midst of an unusual IPO boom

Investors looking to cash in on India’s growth have typically focused their attention either on the sprawling conglomerates run by the country’s tycoons or the buzzy tech firms transforming the way Indians shop, learn or move around. How, then, to explain the excitement over Cello World, a 61-year-old company of middling size that listed its shares on the two local bourses on November 6th? It produces the “tiffin” boxes Indians use to carry their lunch to school or work, along with inexpensive pens and moulded furniture—hardly exciting stuff. Yet on the first day of trading its shares soared by 29%, sending its market value above $2bn. That is nearly 60 times the net profit it made in the last fiscal year. Its initial public offering (IPO) was roughly 40 times oversubscribed.