The initial public offering (IPO) of Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) was drawn 2.95 times, according to stock market data, as bids closed on the last day of the offering. At the upper price range, the government will mobilize ₹21,000 crore from this IPO.
The IPO opened for subscription on May 4 and, despite volatile market conditions, drew strong reactions from LIC’s policyholders, who subscribed for 60% of the issue size, followed by employees, retail investors and other investor categories
The portion reserved for eligible policyholders was subscribed 6.12 times and that for eligible employees 4.4 times, while the retail category was subscribed 1.99 times; the non-institutional category saw 2.91x subscription and qualified institutional buyers 2.83x subscription.
The offering received bids for 47,83,67,010 shares against the offering size of 16,20,78,067 shares, excluding shares offered to anchor investors, data available on exchanges at 19:00 showed.
The IPO involved an offer to sell up to 221,374,920 shares with a par value of £10 each by the President of India. The shares are listed on the BSE and NSE.
“Participation from Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities in the LIC IPO has been high,” said FundsIndia CEO Girirajan Murugan. “We can attribute this to a deeper penetration of LIC by agents and policyholders. We have also received a good number of applications from the newly formed union areas,” he added.
“We are certain that this will pave the way for greater retail involvement in the secondary markets. The Demat accounts opened for the LIC IPO application will be used for larger investments in the stock markets,” he said.
