Tempsens Instruments IPO breaks 20-month mainboard listing drought with 111% debut gain

Tempsens Instruments shares more than doubled on their market debut on Friday, delivering a 111.3% listing gain and becoming the first mainboard IPO in more than 20 months to cross the 100% mark.

The stock listed at Rs 634, against an issue price of Rs 300, giving investors a gain of Rs 334 per share on the first day itself. The IPO had raised Rs 650 crore.

The scale of the debut makes Tempsens the strongest mainboard listing of 2026 so far. Bharat Coking Coal, a subsidiary of Coal India, had previously recorded the year's biggest debut, listing at around a 96% premium. Beharilal Engineering followed with a 64% gain, while IndoMIM and CMG Green Technologies listed 44% and 40% higher, respectively. Dhoot Transmission and Advit Jewels also delivered listing gains of around 37%.

Tempsens breaks a long gap in blockbuster IPO listings

The last time a mainboard IPO delivered a listing gain of more than 100% was on December 27, 2024, when Mamatha Machinery made its debut at a 147% premium. That puts the gap between the two blockbuster listings at 609 days.

The 2024 IPO cycle produced several such debuts. Vibhor Steel Tubes topped the year's list with a 181.5% listing premium, followed by BLS E-Services at 126%. Premier Energies gained 120% on debut, while KNR Heat Exchanger and Unicommerce eSolutions rose 118% and 117%, respectively. Bajaj Housing Finance also listed at a premium of about 114%.

The momentum did not carry into 2025. No mainboard IPO doubled investors' money on listing day that year.

Highway Infrastructure recorded the highest debut gain at 65%, although the stock is now 35% below its issue price. Urban Company listed 57.5% above its issue price, while Aditya Infotech made its debut at a 50% premium and has since gained 435% from its IPO price.

LG Electronics and GNG Electronics also recorded listing gains of 50%, while Meesho gained a little over 46% on its debut.

Strong listings return as retail investors turn selective

The sharp rise in listing gains this year has come alongside a noticeable change in retail participation.

ET data covering 42 mainboard IPOs in 2026 shows that the retail portion was not fully subscribed in nearly one-third of the offerings. The quota reserved for retail investors was fully subscribed in only 30 issues.

Heavy oversubscription has also become less common. Just 16 of the 42 IPOs, or 38%, attracted retail bids of more than five times the shares available to the category. The comparable proportion was 63% in 2025 and 68% in 2024.

The decline becomes more pronounced when median subscription levels are considered. Retail investors subscribed to a median 2.32 times the available quota across the 42 IPOs this year through mid-August. The figure was 8.35 times across 45 issues in 2025 and 17.59 times across 45 IPOs in 2024.

Retail participation was considerably broader in the earlier periods. The retail quota was fully subscribed in all 50 mainboard IPOs in 2024 and in 44 of 49 issues in 2025, or around 90%.

Tempsens' debut therefore stands out not only for crossing the 100% listing-gain threshold after a long gap, but also because it comes at a time when retail demand across the primary market has become more selective. The contrast suggests that strong individual IPO debuts are continuing to attract attention even without the broad-based retail participation seen in previous years.

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