New Delhi: Robust demand from local investors following a last minute dash by foreign funds helped the central government to garner Rs 20,560 crore ($2.7 billion) from the mega initial public offering (IPO) of Life Insurance Corporation (LIC).
The shares of the insurance behemoth have been priced at Rs 949 each, the company said in a prospectus filed on Friday.
The shares were offered at Rs 902 to Rs 949 apiece. Share trading on the stock exchanges will begin on May 17.
The LIC IPO, which was dubbed India’s ‘Aramco moment’ in reference to Gulf oil giant Saudi Arabian Oil Co.’s $29.4 billion listing in 2019, the world’s largest, the float of the insurer has ended up resembling the Aramco IPO not just in scale but in its reliance on domestic investors after some foreign buyers deemed it too expensive.
Before the closing of subscription this week, foreign institutional investors (FIIs) stepped up their bids for the sale during the last hours, shunning currency risks and global market uncertainties.
The LIC IPO, which is the biggest offering in India to date, is the world’s fourth-biggest this year, according to data by Bloomberg.
According to the report, LIC shares are trading at a discount of about Rs 30 to its IPO price in the grey market.
Retail investors and LIC policyholders were among the most enthusiastic for the offering, mostly because of the discounts they were offered. The portion reserved for them was fully taken up days before the offering was closed. The anchor portion of the IPO drew in sovereign funds from Norway and Singapore, while other foreign investors picked up pace only on the last day.
Overall, the LIC offer was oversubscribed by nearly three times. The money will help the government bridge a budget deficit that’s expected to widen as commodity prices soar across the world.
The government wanted to launch the LIC IPO in the last fiscal year (in March), but because of geo-political tensions and high volatility in the market compelled them to postpone the IPO until May.