State-run Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) has filed draft papers with the market regulator to sell 5% of its shares to potentially raise nearly $8 billion, dwarfing the biggest IPO in Asia’s third-largest economy by a considerable margin.
India aims to launch its $8 billion listing of state-run Life Insurance Corp (LIC) by mid-April, two government sources said, after delaying what will be the country’s biggest ever IPO from this month due to market volatility.
The offering is crucial to the Narendra Modi-led government’s efforts to meet its sharply trimmed divestment target for the current financial year and will provide a measure of the success of the government’s pro-market policies.
India’s largest insurer will be selling 316.25 million shares, according to the draft prospectus filed on Sunday, amounting to nearly 5% of the post-offer paid up share capital.
The government could raise a little more than 600 billion Indian rupees ($7.97 billion) from the issuance rather than the initial plan for about 900 billion rupees, having trimmed the offering because of market conditions, a government source said.
