The LIC IPO, touted as India’s largest ever, was earlier delayed from March due to market volatility and cut back by a third of the original target, in the face of limited demand.
Now having debuted at the stock exchanges on a weak note on Tuesday, LIC’s shares were listing at an 8.62 per cent discount from the original issue price.
The LIC scrip opened at INR 867.20 apiece on the BSE, down 8.62 per cent from the issue price of INR 949. On the National Stock Exchange (NSE), it opened 8.11 per cent lower at INR 872 per share.
The INR 21,000 crore blockbuster initial public offering (IPO) of LIC had witnessed a good response, being oversubscribed almost 3 times after a marathon 6-day subscription period from May 4-9.
The shares which were to be allocated for the qualified institutional buyers (QIBs) was subscribed 2.83 times, while those of non institutional investors was subscribed 2.91 times and that of retail individual investors (RIIs) was subscribed 1.99 times.
Apart from these, the policyholders portion was subscribed 6.12 times while the employees segment was subscribed 4.40 times.
The issue price of LIC was fixed at Rs 949 apiece for allotment to investors.
The general consensus among Dalal Street talking heads was that the current market is not conducive for primary issues and LIC being the largest IPO had overall witnessed a ‘negative listing.’
LIC is the countrys oldest and largest life insurance firm, formed by the merger of 245 nationalised life insurance companies on September 1, 1956, with an initial capital of Rs 5 crore.
LIC now manages around Rs 40 lakh crore assets and is the fifth-largest life insurer globally and the largest asset manager in the country.
As of December 31, 2021, it covered 91 per cent of all districts and had 1.33 million individual agents, and had a market share of 61.6 per cent in terms of premiums.
LIC is owned by the central government which sold 22.13 crore (22,13,74,920) shares or 3.5 per cent of its stake in LIC through the public offering.
The IPO was entirely an offer-for-sale (OFS) and the government raised over Rs 21,000 crore through the sale.