Small and medium enterprises have largely stayed away from the capital market in 2020 with public offers on a declining trend during the year.

The number of initial public offers from SMEs were only 27 in 2020 with a total amount raised worth Rs 159 crore. This is in contrast to 2019 where there were 51 IPOs which collected Rs 624 crore.

The largest SME maiden offer in the year, according to primedatabase.com, was from Secmark Consultancy which raised Rs 14 crore.

“In the debt market, the government has already announced so many packages as relief measures for the MSME sector. Interest rates have come down from around 10 per cent to the range of 7.5-8 per cent. So there is an uptick in debt,” Ajay Thakur, head — BSE SME and Startups, told The Telegraph.

“The relationship between the bank and the MSME is usually longer and the banks have all the data. This is unlike the stock market where the MSME has to work on a prospectus and reach out to first time investors,” he said.