New Delhi: The much awaited initial public offering (IPO) of the Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) opened for subscription on Wednesday for retail and institutional investors.
The central government eyes to fetch Rs 21,000 crore by offloading 3.5 per cent stake in the state-run insurer.
On May 2, LIC, has raised Rs 5,630 crore at the upper end of the price band from anchor investors, led primarily by domestic institutions. Anchor investors portion (5,92,96,853 equity shares) was subscribed at Rs 949 per equity share.
The listing, now open for retail and institutional investors, is set to close on May 9.
The insurance behemoth has fixed the IPO price band at Rs 902-949 per equity share for the issue, which includes a reservation for eligible employees and policyholders.
The company said that the retail investors and eligible employees will get a discount of Rs 45 per equity share and policyholders will get a discount of Rs 60 per equity share.
The share sale is happening via an offer-for-sale (OFS) of up to 22.13 crore equity shares. The shares are likely to be listed on May 17.
According to news reports, as of December 2021, LIC had a market share of 61.6 per cent in terms of premiums (GWP), 61.4 per cent in terms of new business premium, 71.8 per cent in terms of the number of individual policies issued, and 88.8 per cent in terms of the number of group policies issued.
The government has cut down the IPO size to 3.5 per cent from 5 per cent decided earlier. The IPO, which was supposed to launch in March, was postponed to May because of ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine, volatile market conditions, and high inflation.
Even after the size was reduced to Rs 20,557 crore, LIC IPO is going to be the biggest public listing ever in the country.
The IPO of One97 Communications (Paytm) in 2021 was the second-largest ever at Rs 18,300 crore, followed by Coal India (2010) at Rs 15,500 crore, and Reliance Power (2008) at Rs 11,700 crore.