Life Insurance of Corporation of India’s initial public offering gets bids from large investors for twice the size of the anchor book, according to people with the knowledge of the matter.
The anchor book of Rs 56 billion ($733 million) for the country’s largest public offering of Rs 210 billion will be announced on Monday.
The government has been given permission by the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) to sell 3.5 percent of its stake in the insurer through the IPO.
Earlier the government had announced an IPO size of 5 percent but was trimmed to 3.5 percent last month due to market conditions.
The company’s embedded value – or measure of consolidated shareholders’ value in an insurance firm – was estimated at ₹5.4 lakh crore in September. The evaluation was done by the international actuarial firm Milliman Advisors.
Singapore’s GIC Pte and Norway’s sovereign wealth fund are among the anchor investors, the people said, asking not to be identified before an official announcement. LIC didn’t immediately respond to an email seeking comment.
The LIC IPO aims to price shares between Rs 902 and Rs 949 each. Firms in India have raised about $1.1 billion through IPOs this year, data compiled by Bloomberg show. That’s less than half of the almost $3 billion raised in the same period in 2021. The offering runs from May 4 to 9 for other investors.
As much as 50 per cent of the offer is reserved for qualified institutional placements (QIPs), including anchor investors. While 35 per cent is being reserved for retail investors and 15 per cent for high net worth individuals, ten per cent is reserved for policyholders.
LIC IPO: Other Updates
In a bid to make the LIC IPO accessible to people, Paytm’s parent company One97 Communications has announced that Paytm Money has started placing QR codes across kirana or mom-n-pop stores. Any individual will be able to create their Demat accounts for free and place their bids for LIC IPO using these QR codes.
A Demat account is mandatory for anyone wanting to trade in stock markets.
Paytm Money has also enabled pre-open IPO applications that will help investors apply even before the IPO opens for subscription, as per an official release. These applications will be recorded in Paytm Money’s system and will be sent to exchanges as and when the IPO goes live.
Paytm Money is the first discount broker in the country to allow high net worth individuals (HNIs) to place bids of up to Rs 5 lakh through UPI. A separate category has also been created for the LIC IPO in addition to the retail investor category.
