Mumbai, May 17 (Agency) The much-awaited listing of insurance behemoth Life Insurance Corporation made a mjuted debut on the bourses on Tuesday after opening at nearly 8 per cent discount at Rs 872 as against the issue price of Rs 949 a piece. The LIC IPO which had opened on May 4 and closed on May 9, was oversubscribed 2.95 x attracting bids for 47.81 crore equity shares against the size of 16.20 crore shares, excluding the anchor investors. Amid a lot of fanfare and expectations, LIC opened at Rs 872 a piece on the National Stock Exchange (NSE), while the issue got listed at Rs 867.20 per share on the BSE. LIC had fixed the issue price at Rs 949 per share, which fetched the government Rs 20,577 crore.
Earlier, Tuhin Kanta Pandey, Secretary DIPAM, who was present at the listing of the issue at the BSE termed it as a momentous event which is in line with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s vision. “The IPO was right sized considering the capital market environment with the objective of not crowding out the capital and monetary supply given the current environment constraint. We have brought LIC in the listed space in line with our Prime Minister’s commitment,” Pandey said. He further said that the government has managed to list public sector entities like Indian Railway Finance Corporation (IRFC), Mazgaon Dock Shipbuilders and RailTel during the Covid pandemic. “LIC is the fourth one, the biggest one, working within constraints, what we call as constraint optimisation. We cannot keep talking about constraints, but we need to perform under constraints and find out ways to do it,” he added.
Stating the IPO received a great response from retail investors as well as policyholders, he said that nearly 50 lakh demat accounts have been opened since November 2021. Pandey further said that the IPO received applications from hitherto unheard places in the rural areas. “This was an Aatmanirbhar issue,” he added. Echoing similar views, LIC Chairman MR Kumar said, “Today is a historic day for us. It was an exciting journey and the listing ceremony is the culmination of hardwork…it’s a Aatmanirbhar movement and LIC movement.” The issue was offered at a discount of Rs 60 for policyholders at Rs 889 and Rs 45 for retail and employees at Rs 904 apiece. The government had offloaded 22.13 crore shares or 3.5 per cent stake in LIC through the IPO. Kotak Mahindra Capital Company, Axis Capital, BofA Securities India, Citigroup Global Markets India, JM Financial, JP Morgan India, Goldman Sachs (India) Securities, ICICI Securities, Nomura Financial Advisory and Securities (India) and SBI Capital Markets are the book running lead managers to the issue.