Foreign money is leaving. What that means for pre-IPO entry prices

Indian equities have had a hard few weeks. On 1 October the Sensex touched 71,527 and the Nifty 22,301, on course for an eighth straight weekly loss, the longest run in 25 years. Foreign institutional investors sold ₹10,148 Cr on a single day that week, taking 2026 outflows to a record of about $27.8 billion. By 12 October, foreign portfolio investors had withdrawn ₹44,166 Cr from Indian equities in October alone, and the rupee was down about 7% for the year.

The reasons are mostly outside India: high US Treasury yields are pulling money towards dollar assets. Domestic business confidence has held up; ASSOCHAM's index showed 5.6% growth for April to September.

The lag between listed and private prices

Listed prices move every second. Private round prices move when a promoter is persuaded they should. So when listed multiples fall, there is a period in which private rounds are still being priced off where listed peers traded a year ago. Buyers who accept those prices are paying a premium for illiquidity, not a discount for it.

The desk's rule is the opposite: every round is set against where comparable listed companies trade now, with trailing and forward P/E shown side by side in the room. In a falling market that test gets stricter, not looser.

What to look for in a round today

• Is the price set against today's listed peers, or last year's?
• How much of the forward multiple depends on a projection, rather than audited profit?
• How long is the path to listing, and does the lock-in after listing still leave room for the multiple to normalise?

A selloff driven by global rates does not change a profitable company's earnings. It changes the price at which its shares are worth buying. For a patient family office, that is the better time to be looking.