LIC mega IPO opens for subscription

LIC public offer, the country’s biggest-ever IPO, on Wednesday opened for subscription for retail and institutional investors.

The government aims to generate about ₹21,000 crore by diluting its 3.5% stake in the insurance behemoth.

The LIC initial public offering (IPO), now open for retail and institutional investors, is set to close on May 9.

LIC has fixed the price band at ₹902-949 per equity share for the issue. The offer includes a reservation for eligible employees and policyholders. The retail investors and eligible employees will get a discount of ₹45 per equity share, and policyholders will get a discount of ₹60 per equity share.

The share sale is through an offer-for-sale (OFS) of up to 22.13 crore equity shares. The shares are likely to be listed on May 17.

LIC has cornered a little over ₹5,627 crore from anchor investors led primarily by domestic institutions. Anchor Investors (AIs) portion (5,92,96,853 equity shares) was subscribed at ₹949 per equity share.

LIC reduced its IPO size to 3.5% from 5% decided earlier due to the prevailing market condition. Even after the reduced size of about ₹20,557 crore, LIC IPO is going to be the biggest initial public offering ever in the country.

So far, the amount mobilised from the IPO of Paytm in 2021 was the largest ever at ₹18,300 crore, followed by Coal India (2010) at nearly ₹15,500 crore and Reliance Power (2008) at ₹11,700 crore.

LIC was formed by merging and nationalising 245 private life insurance companies on September 1, 1956, with an initial capital of ₹5 crore.

Its product portfolio comprises 32 individual products (16 participating products and 16 non-participating products) and seven individual optional rider benefits. The insurer’s group product portfolio comprises 11 group products.

As of December 2021, LIC had a market share of 61.6% in terms of premiums or GWP, 61.4% in terms of new business premium, 71.8% in terms of the number of individual policies issued, and 88.8 per cent in terms of the number of group policies issued.