NEW DELHI :
The government will sell 5% of its stake in the country largest insurer Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) through an initial public offering (IPO), which may fetch it ₹71,000 crore based on the calculated embedded value.
According to the draft red herring prospectus (DRHP) filed with the Securities Exchange Board of India (Sebi), the government will put on sale 316,249,885 equity shares through an offer for sale.
“The IPO is 100% OFS by GOI and no fresh issue of shares by LIC. For filing valuation about 31.6 cr shares are on offer representing 5% equity,” said department of investment and public asset management (DIPAM) secretary Tuhin Kanta Pandey on a Twitter post Sunday evening.
At an embedded value of ₹5.39 trillion the government is valuing LIC at ₹15 trillion. Mint had reported last week that the government will sell at least 5% equity through stake sale, which will have reservation for employees and policyholders.
LIC has 66% market share in new business premiums with 283 million policies and 1.35 million agents as of 31st March, 2021, Pandey said.
According to calculations by Mint, the offer size comes to ₹27,000 crore which can se sold at nearly three times the value coming to ₹71,000 crore. At this level, the listing will become the largest for the government and the proceeds can help it surpass the divestment target of ₹78,000 crore set for FY 22.
Pandey has said previously that the government aims to bring the largest ever IPO to the market within this financial year, by March 2022.
The DRHP specifies that the employee reservation portion shall not exceed 5% of the post-offer equity share capital, which may be offered on a discount. Further, policyholder reservation portion will not exceed 10% of the offer size, which may also be offered on a discount.
About 60% of the qualified institutional bidders (QIB) portion may be allocated to anchor investors on a discretionary basis. One third of this portion will be reserved fir domestic mutual funds, subject to valid bids at or above anchor investor allocation price.
“In the event of under-subscription in the Anchor Investor Portion, the remaining Equity Shares shall be added to the Net QIB Portion,” the DRHP stated.
“Subject to valid Bids being received at or above the Offer Price, under-subscription, if any, in the Non-Institutional Portion or the Retail Portion,
would be allowed to be met with spill over from any other category or combination of categories of Bidders at the discretion of our Corporation and the Selling Shareholder in consultation with the Book Running Lead Managers and the Designated Stock Exchange,” the prospectus stated.
Actuarial firm Milliman Advisors LLP India has worked out the embedded value of LIC, while Deloitte and SBI Caps have been appointed as pre-IPO transaction advisors. The government has appointed 10 merchant bankers, including Goldman Sachs (India) Securities Pvt Ltd, Citigroup Global Markets India Pvt Ltd and Nomura Financial Advisory and Securities (India) Pvt Ltd, to manage the mega IPO of the country’s largest insurer.
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