What is the difference between an offer document and prospectus?

A prospectus is an offer document issued for launching an IPO. The prospectus is the final document containing all details, including the issue price and issue size, as well as all information from a draft document with updated and recent amendments.

An offer document is a document issued in case of an IPO. There are various types of offer documents. The names of the offering documents depend on what stage of the IPO they are in.

DRHP is the first document, also known as a draft offer document, issued to seek feedback from the public and SEBI/Exchange approval for the IPO. RHP is an updated offering document issued in case of book-built issues with updated financial information, issue dates and proposed amendments as directed by SEBI. A Prospectus is a final document containing pricing details, issue dates and all updated information from the RHP/DRHP. In case of a fixed price issue, a company directly issues a final prospectus.

All the offer documents including the prospectus contains a wealth of information about the company to help investors make their IPO investment decision.