Stocks to Watch June 18: NSE DRHP, HFCL BharatNet, DOMS Block Deal

Indian markets head into Thursday, June 18 with a roster of sector-specific catalysts ranging from a record ₹2,666 crore BharatNet contract win to a 7.3% promoter exit at DOMS Industries. GIFT NIFTY futures indicate the NIFTY50 index will open 46 points lower, with sentiment likely to be steered by a clutch of mid- and small-cap triggers alongside two heavyweight regulatory updates. The day’s clear lead story, however, comes from a filing that caps almost a decade of regulatory wrangling: the National Stock Exchange of India has submitted its draft IPO papers to SEBI for what is expected to become India’s largest public issue.

The DRHP, filed on Wednesday, June 17, sets up an offer-for-sale of up to 14.89 crore equity shares, representing nearly 6% of NSE’s paid-up capital. With NSE’s unlisted market valuation hovering around ₹5 lakh crore, the issue is estimated to be sized at roughly ₹30,000 crore, close to the ₹27,000 crore Hyundai Motor India IPO of 2024. Shares of rival BSE ended at ₹4,004 apiece on Wednesday, down 3.81%, as the headline dragged attention across the exchange space. Banking stocks will track the Reserve Bank of India’s June 8 move to temporarily remove interest-rate caps on select NRI deposits, a decision aimed at attracting foreign currency inflows into the system. Below the surface, several single-stock triggers from HFCL, Vedanta Aluminium, GIC Re and the India-UK trade pact are likely to do more heavy lifting for individual names.

NSE’s Draft Filing Caps a Decade of Waiting

The National Stock Exchange has filed its Draft Red Herring Prospectus with the Securities and Exchange Board of India, paving the way for an offer-for-sale of up to 14.89 crore equity shares of face value ₹1 each. The share sale represents nearly 6% of NSE’s paid-up equity capital, with SBI, MS Strategic Mauritius, the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB), Aranda Investments Mauritius, Bank of Baroda, Stock Holding Corporation of India, GIC Re, New India Assurance, National Insurance Company and United India Insurance Company among the selling shareholders. LIC, one of the anchor investors in the exchange, will not participate in the offering. Kotak Mahindra Capital, JM Financial, Morgan Stanley, Citi, HSBC, JP Morgan and SBI Capital Markets are acting as book-running lead managers to the 14.89 crore share DRHP filed with SEBI.

Nearly a decade of regulatory delays pushed previous attempts off the calendar, with the co-location controversy and a string of interventions at the front of the queue. For FY26, NSE reported revenue from operations of ₹16,601 crore and net profit of ₹10,302 crore, against ₹14,780 crore and ₹8,305 crore in FY24. The exchange cited World Federation of Exchanges data to position itself as the world’s largest equity derivatives venue in FY26, with over 36.99 billion contracts traded across the period.

The numbers behind the filing tell a separate story. NSE’s unique registered investor base grew at a compounded annual rate of 26.9% between March 2020 and March 2026, rising from 3.09 crore to 12.91 crore investors, spread across more than 99% of India’s postal codes. NSE’s technology infrastructure processed an average of 12-14 billion messages daily as of March 2026, and the platform facilitated fund mobilisation of ₹20.3 lakh crore during FY26 alone. For BSE, the listed rival that now hosts NSE’s shares, the development cuts both ways: it brings the broader exchange story into focus even as it amplifies competition for order flow. Shares of BSE settled at ₹4,004 apiece on Wednesday, down 3.81% on the NSE, the sharpest single-day reaction since the listing saga re-entered the news cycle.

HFCL and RVNL Both Stack Fresh Orders

HFCL has been awarded a contract worth around ₹2,666.09 crore by Rail Vikas Nigam Limited for the BharatNet Phase-III project in the Uttar Pradesh (West) telecom circle. The contract comprises capex of around ₹1,192.82 crore and opex of around ₹1,473.27 crore, with execution spread over two years followed by ten years of operations and maintenance, including a one-year warranty period.

HFCL said in its regulatory filing that the new order is in addition to an earlier ₹2,167.65 crore contract from RVNL for BharatNet Phase-III projects in the Uttar Pradesh (East) and Uttar Pradesh (West) telecom circles, which the company disclosed on January 23, 2025. Together, the two BharatNet contracts take HFCL’s order book additions in the rural broadband space past ₹4,833 crore in roughly eighteen months. The project covers supply, installation and commissioning of telecom equipment, creation of an optical fibre cable network, and ten years of network maintenance. BharatNet, implemented by state-run Bharat Broadband Network Limited, aims to provide non-discriminatory broadband access to more than 2.5 lakh Gram Panchayats across India.

RVNL, the public-sector railway infrastructure company that awarded the contract, also picked up a fresh order worth ₹967.93 crore from the East Coast Railway on the same day, for the construction of a major bridge project. The East Coast Railway contract was secured as a Letter of Acceptance, with RVNL emerging as the L1 bidder. RVNL shares rose over 4% on the back of the development, adding a second leg of order flow momentum to the counter on top of its role as the contract-awarding authority on the BharatNet work.

The BharatNet Phase-III programme is one of the largest rural telecom initiatives in the world, with the government saying 2.14 lakh Gram Panchayats had already been made service-ready under Phases I and II by February, against an investment of roughly ₹42,000 crore. Phase III builds on that base with deeper fibre penetration and a longer maintenance window, which is why the opex component is unusually heavy in this contract. For HFCL, the structure matches its pivot from being a pure equipment supplier to a long-tenure broadband infrastructure partner, where the company earns over a decade rather than a single shipment. RVNL, meanwhile, continues to operate as a hybrid contractor and owner of these networks, taking a slice of the contract value and a share of the operational responsibility through its role as programme manager. Both stocks are likely to see heavy volumes on June 18 as the BharatNet story sits alongside other PSU railway order flows.

DOMS Slips on FILA’s ₹980 Crore Block Exit

Shares of DOMS Industries fell nearly 5% to an intraday low of ₹2,200 per share on the NSE on Wednesday after Italian promoter FILA Fabbrica Italiana Lapis Ed Affini Spa sold a 7.3% stake in the stationery maker through a block deal. The transaction involved 44.1 lakh shares valued at about ₹980.6 crore, with the floor price for the deal set at ₹2,100 per share, a discount of around 9% to the previous close. The stock recovered some losses in the morning session and was trading around ₹2,246.90, down 2.9%, by 9:40 am IST. FILA held 26.01% in DOMS Industries at the end of the March quarter, according to shareholding data on the exchanges.

Before the deal, Tuesday’s reporting had pegged FILA’s planned sale at up to 7% of equity, worth around ₹892 crore, with a base deal size of 5.2% and an upsize option of 1.8%. The actual transaction exceeded both, with the upsize fully exercised and the final share count coming in slightly above the upper end of the disclosed range. Domestic institutional investors were the buyers of record, with SBI Mutual Fund and Axis Mutual Fund named as key participants in the transaction.

The exit landed at a sensitive moment for the stock. DOMS shares had rallied into the transaction on strong stationery demand and a steady margin profile, leaving little headroom for an at-floor price discovery. The 9% discount at which the deal was struck amplified intraday volatility, with the stock printing a wide ₹2,200 to ₹2,302 range before stabilising. For a counter that trades on relatively thin liquidity, a single ₹980 crore block is large enough to redraw the holder base in a session. The post-block anchor demand either holds up through Thursday’s session or the ₹2,100 floor becomes a soft cap until the next institutional rebalance; FILA’s ₹980.6 crore block exit in DOMS is the cleanest read on whether the new shareholder base is here to stay.

Citi Initiates Buy on Newly Listed Vedanta Aluminium

Citi has initiated coverage on newly listed Vedanta Aluminium with a Buy rating, attaching a target price of Rs 560 that implies a 20% upside from recent levels. The global investment bank has also placed the stock on a 90-day positive catalyst watch, signalling that near-term triggers could move the price before the formal thesis plays out.

The brokerage expects Vedanta Aluminium to transition to a net cash position by FY28, supported by stronger earnings and a declining debt-equity ratio. Citi’s commodity team is forecasting aluminium prices of $3,700 per tonne in CY27 and $3,800 per tonne in CY28, levels that materially improve the unit economics of an integrated aluminium operation. The thesis rests on three structural levers that the brokerage has laid out in its initiation note.

• Capacity expansion: a multi-year build-out lifts volumes and brings down per-unit cost.
• Cost reduction: ongoing initiatives target coal and power costs, the two biggest swing factors in aluminium spreads.
• Balance sheet: declining debt and improving earnings put the company on track for a net cash position by FY28, per Citi.

For traders, the 90-day catalyst watch matters more than the target. Aluminium prices, quarterly volume prints and progress on cost initiatives are likely to dominate the tape over the next two quarters, with each datapoint feeding into whether the rating holds. Newer market entrants may price in the bull case quickly, leaving limited room for short-term outperformance on top of the implied target. Vedanta Aluminium sits within the wider Vedanta group, whose Indian listed parent has separately drawn regulatory attention over royalty payments in recent weeks (the FEMA royalty probe at Vedanta’s offices).

Banking Stocks, GIC Re and the India-UK Trade Pact

HDFC Bank and ICICI Bank are likely to draw attention after the Reserve Bank of India temporarily removed interest-rate caps on select NRI deposits, a move announced on June 8 and aimed at attracting foreign currency inflows. Under the relaxation, interest-rate ceilings have been lifted on new Foreign Currency Non-Resident Bank deposits, known as FCNR(B), with tenors of three to five years, and on select Non-Resident External (NRE) deposits, until September 30, 2026. The RBI will also bear the full foreign-exchange hedging cost for authorised banks that raise fresh three- to five-year FCNR(B) deposits over the same window.

For the banking system, the change widens the runway to mobilise dollar funding from non-resident accounts, easing the funding mismatch that built up as the rupee weakened. The earlier cap had compressed the rates that banks could offer, limiting the gap between domestic and offshore returns. Lifting the cap lets individual banks set competitive rates for NRIs, and the RBI’s full hedging-cost absorption protects margins on the new book. The trade may not show up in Q1 deposit growth, which already reflects the early-June policy backdrop, but it should re-rate the FCNR(B) franchise over the next two quarters. Deposit growth in itself remains the cleanest read on whether the policy window translates into actual dollars on bank balance sheets.

GIC Re, the state-owned reinsurer, closed its 5% offer-for-sale fully subscribed, with the base offer and the 3% green-shoe option both taken up by investors. Non-retail bidders oversubscribed the OFS on June 16 with bids worth ₹4,000 crore, while the retail and employee tranche opened on June 17.

The transaction pulls the government’s stake in GIC Re from 82.4% to about 77.4%, retaining majority ownership while adding roughly ₹3,075 crore to the disinvestment kitty at the floor price of ₹352 per share. The completion came against a sharp drop in the stock, which fell roughly 9% from Tuesday’s close of ₹388.35 to ₹353.50 on Wednesday, reducing the market value of the government’s residual stake by about ₹5,000 crore. Subscription was driven by institutional anchors on day one, with the retail and employee leg discovering the final clearing price later in the week. The non-institutional response was the strongest single signal of demand, with bids worth ₹4,000 crore covering the full base offer (the ₹4,000 crore non-retail bidding on GIC Re).

Offer for sale in GIC Re closed with enthusiastic response from the investors. Government of India has divested 5.0% stake in GIC Re with full subscription of base and greenshoe offer.

DIPAM Secretary Arunish Chawla wrote the line on X, framing the demand in plain terms on the day the OFS closed. The deal lifts the Centre’s FY27 disinvestment and asset-monetisation tally to ₹19,756.35 crore so far, against an ambitious ₹80,000 crore full-year target. The India-UK Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA), meanwhile, comes into force on July 15, removing or reducing tariffs across textiles, alcoholic beverages and a wider set of goods in both directions (the UK’s countdown notice on CETA). Commerce Ministry officials confirmed the effective date on Wednesday, and stocks with direct UK exposure across textiles and alcohol are likely to see positioning ahead of the entry-into-force date.

Other Movers: ACC, Hexaware and Vedanta Iron & Steel

ACC Ltd will continue to expand its cement capacity in a calibrated manner, deepen its ready-mix concrete (RMC) footprint and accelerate the adoption of low-carbon technologies, Chairman Karan Adani said in his message to shareholders in the company’s latest annual report. ACC currently operates a cement capacity of 36.05 MTPA and reported revenue of ₹22,210 crore from operations during the reporting period. Adani flagged that demand conditions in the near-term are likely to remain ‘moderate’, requiring a balanced and disciplined approach to growth. The annual report’s cautious near-term tone sits alongside a longer runway that the parent group has already laid out.

ACC’s parent group, Adani Cement, crossed the 100 MTPA cement capacity milestone in April 2025 after the Orient Cement acquisition, and is targeting 140 MTPA by FY 2027-28. The calibrated expansion message from ACC sits alongside a wider infrastructure push that has lifted cement consumption in roads, urban housing and data-centre build-outs over the past two years. Near-term demand softness is the caveat, but the capacity runway is the long-tail story. Cement has been one of the few large-cap industrials to deliver volume-led growth through a soft pricing environment, and that has kept valuations defensible even as commodity costs fluctuated. For investors, the read-across extends to ACC’s listed peer Ambuja Cements, which sits at the top of the Adani cement stack.

Three more names anchor the secondary tape today, each on a single-stock catalyst rather than a sector-wide thesis. The list spans a UK-bound IT expansion, a freshly listed iron-ore platform, and the cement maker already covered above, so no one sector dominates the day’s flow. Friday’s volume prints will be the first proper read on whether any of these names carries price discovery beyond the headline-driven rotation.

1. ACC: calibrated cement capacity expansion and deeper RMC footprint under Karan Adani’s roadmap, with the parent targeting 140 MTPA by FY 2027-28.
2. Hexaware Technologies: £25 million UK investment creating around 1,200 jobs across Manchester, Leeds and Birmingham in AI, digital services and quantum computing, unveiled at the G7 Summit on June 16.
3. Vedanta Iron & Steel: outlines an integrated steel platform backed by approximately 4 billion tonnes of iron ore reserves, with the company citing more than 50 years of raw material security.

Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice. Securities mentioned carry risk, including the loss of principal, and the regulatory and order-flow triggers discussed may not materialise as expected. Readers should consult a qualified financial professional before making any investment decision. Figures are accurate as of publication on June 18, 2026.