IPO IPO: Shares of India’s largest insurance company Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) traded at a discount on its debut on the stock exchange. The government has done its best to offer a very high-quality company at a fair price, said Tuhin Kanta Pandey, secretary of the Ministry of Investment and Public Asset Management after LIC’s IPO on Tuesday, May 17 at a discount. the BSE and NSE on Tuesday morning at Rs 872 per share, down a whopping 8.11 per cent from the issue price of Rs 949 per share.
“The government has offered discounts to both policyholders and private investors. We have done our best to offer a very high quality company at a fair price. You have to keep in mind that the roadmap needs to be prepared in the future,” DIPAM secretary Tuhin Kanta Pandey said the day after the LIC listing by CNBC TV18. The government had discounted Rs 60 to LIC policyholders and Rs 45 each to private investors and LIC employees to attract more bids.
ALSO READ: LIC List LIVE Updates: After lukewarm debut, DIPAM Secy says ‘it has done our best to offer a quality company at a fair price’
Pandey urged investors to look at LIC’s IPO in a different way given it is such a large issue, and said the government should also be mindful in preparing the future roadmap. “It is too early to discuss the long roadmap,” he added. The Rs 21,000 crore LIC IPO aims to meet the government’s divestment targets for FY 2022-23 after failing to meet the same last fiscal year.
In a separate conversation, LIC chairman Mangalam Ramasubramanian Kumar told CNBC TV18 about the insurance giant’s plans for the future. He indicated that the management is working on allowing LIC to grow further. “We (LIC) have a lot of bandwidth in the field of agency force. The company is secured from banks in a big way,” he said.
Kumar added that the LIC is likely to report large double-digit growth in non-participating insurance business going forward. “We don’t want to stray from the participating company. However, the company will expand its non-participating business in the future,” the LIC chief added. He notes that at this point it is difficult to predict an embedded value change of the company.
After the LIC listing on NSE and BSE, the company has become the fifth largest company in terms of valuation, with a market cap of Rs 5,65,235 crore at present. Shortly after the discounted listing on Tuesday, LIC shares recovered quickly, reaching Rs 920 on BSE. Later in the day, however, the price dropped to Rs 882 per share of the share. The discounted listing of LIC on NSE and BSE was more or less expected by market experts after the negative LIC IPO GMP and negative market sentiment in general.
Read all the latest news, breaking news and IPL 2022 Live Updates here.
