KARACHI / ISLAMABAD — Driven by aggressive capital market structural simplifications, the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) has successfully broken the country’s long-standing, singular dependency on commercial banking credit for corporate expansion. Official data finalized for the first half of 2026 reveals that nine major corporate entities successfully raised over Rs20 billion ($71 million) by floating public shares through Initial Public Offerings (IPOs). The diversified cross-sector listings spanned across premium manufacturing, petroleum distribution, commercial dairy setups, Islamic finance, real estate ecosystems, and poultry giants. To sustain this equity momentum, the regulator has simultaneously unveiled Pakistan’s very first Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) mutual funds framework.
