In a year when the key equity benchmarks scaled new highs and rallied nearly 20 per cent making investors richer by close to Rs 82 lakh crore, IPO investors laughed all the way to the bank as 55 of the 59 issues gave them handsome returns of 45 per cent on average. In fact, 2023 turned out to be an outlier for primary market investors when 59 companies hit the street, raising Rs 54,000 crore, and returned over 45 per cent more than the issue prices on average, according to exchange data.