Meesho’s Bold Anchor Allocation Sparks Debate, Exposes Rising Tensions in New-Age Tech IPOs

The proverbial cat is out of the bag in the Indian IPO market as Meesho demonstrates an aggressive stance in plot for the anchor book. Meesho saw the highest anchor share of Rs 2.439 crore being allocated to SBI Mutual Fund, a decision taken by the company's management and not merchant bankers involved in the issue process, sources privy to the development revealed.

This move has given wings to the many new companies following a path even further in India's tech-focused IPO market beginning to deal with the significant investors outside of banker advice. On the other hand, it has pointed to a wider challenge—there are literally no rules or guidelines prevailing on what should be considered "fair" anchor allotment under different situations.

A Rare Divide Between the Big Investors

The allocation strategy of Meesho sowed division among the institutional giants of the country that no one expected. Some major players, such as Capital Group, Norges Bank Investment Management, ICICI Prudential MF, and Nippon India MF, exited the anchor book completely. Why the pullout? They envisioned things were getting out of balance.

Meesho offered SBI MF almost ₹600 crore worth of an anchor allocation, whereas ICICI Prudential MF, one of the leading fund houses in India, was given as little as about ₹100 crore—a yawning gap, in the words of those directly involved. Meesho listened to requests to cut the imbalances, but it stuck with its position, one where it "did give a commitment earlier on to SBI MF and had to honor the same."

The biggest aggregate allotment was done on December 2 with a sum of ₹603 crore given to SBI MF. GIC and the Monetary Authority of Singapore took the next biggest combined ₹200 crore. Others were allotted the smaller moneys, such as Fidelity, ₹148 crore, and BlackRock, ₹75 crore. Among the seven largest Indian asset management firms, including Axis MF — second largest after SBI MF — ₹48 crore was all that was given.

Why did Meesho take such a big bet on SBI MF?

Several reasons could be gleaned from among Meesho insiders for such significant bets on SBI MF. Not only did the MF apprise Meesho of its preferred price and volume levels early on, giving Meesho more clarity before the anchor book opened, but also the MF was keen on buying more going into the main IPO and even afterward — as long as the price was at or under the offer price.

Additionally, the reputation of the SBI MF was another pain for the Queen. The fund is best known for taking a long-term approach to retailing IPOs and holds a reputation of not entertaining IPOs that seem like trading opportunities in the spot market. One of the differentiating features of a tech IPO is that most of them start to bleed from the very first day, making a long-term anchor invaluable to companies like Meesho.

SBI MF tends to put pressure on the IPO company for up to one year, confiding people accustomed to the way it perceives about upcoming IPOs. Evaluating the IPO company, selecting the amounts for investment, and often deciding long before the bidding commences on issues involved with subscription. They believe that such a kind of role soundly place SBI MF as an anchor-one proactive participant and not a seeker of general market sentiments to captioning.

The Anchor Oversubscription Hype Islamganj

Meesho's anchor book became heavily oversubscribed, with reports of nearly 30 times the subscriptions. However, experts will tell you that an overwhelming oversubscription is nothing more than misleading. This was evident in the experience described above where no funds were blocked for the likes of anchor investors to bid inflatedly in order to assure themselves an allotment, however small. Intellectual speculation calls it an example of how a very low merchant can play “smarter” than a cunning snake; then again, how many accreted shares from the anchor investors through their own subscriptions will count ‘water under the bridge’ from the retail demand put forth along the last two days of IPO?

About IPO Date, Price, and Valuation

It is scheduled that Meesho’s IPO will occur on December 3, 2025, and shall remain open until December 5, 2025. The public offering amounts to ₹5,421.20 crore, comprising

• Fresh issue: ₹4,250.00 crore
• Offer for Sale: ₹1,171.20 crore

There will be 1.22 crore equity shares, each with face value of ₹1, issued under the price band ₹105–111 under the final debit from the investors' account. Now, Meesho's value is indeed around ₹50,096 crore at the top of the price band. Similarly to trading at BSE and NSE on December 10, 2025, the trading issue is listed.

Meesho's boisterous anchoring strategy is the Yippie moment for modern day IPOs — one that threatens to question old paradigms, challenge the existing big fish, and mark the relit spark on fairness and transparency within the Indian tech Cmarkets.