India's changing corporate landscape

We are in the early stages of an extraordinary episode of rapid scaling up of new companies

Over the past 15 years, economic activity as well as wealth creation has shifted noticeably to the unlisted space globally. According to data compiled by the World Bank, despite significant gross domestic product growth, the number of listed firms worldwide has been unchanged since 2006, after nearly doubling in the previous 20 years.

During this period, flow of funds from private equity has grown. So have deal-sizes: Even large firms are now able to get equity capital without necessarily going public; whereas firms would earlier list at relatively early stages, these days one reads about private fund-raising at valuations exceeding