Kolkata, April 29 (Representative) Life Insurance Corporation of India has fixed the price band at 902 to 949 per Equity Share for its maiden public offer. The initial public offering (“IPO”) of the Corporation will open on May 4 for subscription and close on May 9. Investors can bid for a minimum of 15 Equity Shares and in multiples of 15 Equity Shares thereafter, a company statement here on Friday said. The IPO is through an offer-for-sale (“OFS”) of up to 221,374,920 Equity Shares by the President of India, acting through the Ministry of Finance, Government of India (“Selling Shareholder”) (“Offer”). The Offer includes a reservation for Eligible Employees and Eligible Policyholders. LIC, India’s largest life insurer, had a market share of 61.6% in terms of premiums or GWP, 61.4% in terms of New Business Premium (or NBP), 71.8% in terms of number of individual policies issued, and 88.8% in terms of number of group policies issued, for the nine months ended December 31, 2021 (Source: the CRISIL Report). LIC was formed by merging and nationalizing 245 private life insurance companies in India on September 1, 1956, with an initial capital of 50.00 million.
LIC is the fifth largest life insurer globally by GWP (comparing LIC’s life insurance premium for Fiscal 2021 to its global peers’ life insurance premium for 2020) (source: the CRISIL Report) and the largest asset manager in the country as at December 31, 2021 (source: the CRISIL Report), with an established track record of financial performance and profitable growth. As at December 31, 2021, the Corporation covered 91% of all districts in India and had the largest individual agency network among life insurance entities in India, comprising approximately 1.33 million individual agents. LIC’s individual product portfolio in India comprises 32 individual products (16 participating products and 16 non-participating products) and seven individual optional rider benefits. LIC’s group product portfolio in India comprises 11 group products. Customers in the age bracket 27 to 40 years old accounted for approximately 42% and 42% of individual policies sold in Fiscal 2021 and the nine months ended December 31, 2021, respectively. LIC’s omni-channel distribution platform for individual products currently comprises (i) individual agents, (ii) bancassurance partners, (iii) alternate channels (corporate agents, brokers and insurance marketing firms), (iv) digital sales (through a portal on our Corporation’s website), (v) Micro Insurance agents and (vi) Point of Sales Persons – Life Insurance.
LIC and the Selling Shareholder may, in consultation with the book running lead managers to the Offer, consider participation by Anchor Investors in accordance with the SEBI ICDR Regulations, whose participation shall be one Working Day prior to the Bid/Offer Opening Date, i.e., Monday, 2nd May, 2022. The Offer is being made in terms of Rule 19(2)(b) of the Securities Contracts (Regulation) Rules, 1957, as amended, read with Regulation 31 of the SEBI ICDR Regulations. The Offer is being made through the Book Building Process, in terms of Regulation 6(1) of the SEBI ICDR Regulations, wherein not more than 50% of the Net Offer shall be available for allocation to Qualified Institutional Buyers, not less than 15% of the Net Offer shall be available for allocation to Non-Institutional Bidders and not less than 35% of the Net Offer shall be available for allocation to Retail Individual Bidders. The Offer includes a reservation of 0.025% of the Post-Offer paid up Equity Share capital for Eligible Employees and 0.35% of the Post-Offer paid-up Equity Share capital for Eligible Policyholders. All capitalized terms used herein and not specifically defined shall have the same meaning as ascribed to them in the red herring prospectus dated April 26, 2022 (“RHP”) filed with SEBI and the stock exchanges.