Indian gas maker INOX Air Products files for IPO

Recasts throughout with details from filing and background

Sept 30 (Reuters) - India's INOX Air Products has filed for an initial public offering, with existing investors including US industrial gas maker Air Products and Chemicals' APD.N unit looking to trim their stakes, draft papers showed on Wednesday.

Reuters reported earlier this year that the company, a joint venture between Air Products and Chemicals and India's INOX Group, was planning to launch a $1 billion IPO.

Existing investors including top shareholder Prodair Corp - a unit of Air Products and Chemicals - and INOX Chemicals are looking to offload up to 77.2 million shares in the IPO. INOX Air Products is not issuing new shares and will not receive proceeds.

The IPO filing also comes at a time when activity in India's primary market is picking up after a slow start to the year.

INOX Air Products is a manufacturer of industrial and medical gases, with 57 operating locations in India and merchant liquid gas capacity of 5,106 tonnes per day as of March 2026.

It competes with listed peers including Linde India LIND.NS, India's largest listed industrial gases company with a market value of about $5.6 billion, and Ellenbarrie Industrial Gases ELLE.NS, which went public last year.

India's industrial gases market was worth $11 billion in 2023, but this is set to rise to $21 billion by 2030, according to market research specialist Grand View Research.

INOX Air Products reported an about 4% rise in profit to 9.14 billion rupees for the year ended March 31, while revenue rose nearly 9% to 30.34 billion rupees.

Kotak, Citi, ICICI Securities and JPMorgan are the book-running lead managers for the IPO.

(Reporting by Gnaneshwar Rajan in Bengaluru; Editing by Maju Samuel)

((Gnaneshwar.Rajan@thomsonreuters.com))