Public sector general insurers to debut on bourses this fiscal

The government is finalising plans to list all four public sector general insurance companies on the bourses this fiscal.

“The listing of all state-run general insurers will happen one by one this year,” said Economic Affairs Secretary Shaktikanta Das, adding that the modalities have been finalised by the Department of Financial Services and the insurers.

While Das declined to comment on the exact proposals, sources said that 10 per cent of the government equity in each of the public sector general insurers would be divested.

“The proposals are almost ready. They have to receive Cabinet approval and based on market conditions will be listed one by one,” said a person familiar with the development.

The move follows Finance Minister Arun Jaitley’s announcement in the Union Budget 2016-17.

Apart from the Agriculture Insurance Company of India, there are four state-owned general insurers — New India Assurance Company, National Insurance Company, The Oriental Insurance Company and United India Insurance.

Sources indicated that New India Assurance may be the first to hit the street. The revenue raised through the listing would be used for business expansion where required, while the balance would be credited to exchequer.

Highlighting the progress in implementation of various government reforms, Das also said that the Finance Ministry is talking to various foreign investors for the National investment and Infrastructure Fund.

In an interview to BusinessLine , he said the appointment of the Chief Executive Officer of the NIIF would also be finalised soon. “The shelf of projects has also been kept ready. A small team of personnel has also been put in place…we are in talks with a few more investors and we expect a lot of action,” he said.

The NIIF that has a corpus of ₹40,000 crore will bring in domestic and foreign investments to fund infrastructure projects. While the Centre has invested ₹20,000 crore in the fund, the balance is expected from the private sector.

The government has already signed pacts with investors from Qatar, Abu Dhabi and Russia for the NIIF. Commenting on the recent measures unveiled by the government to further liberalise the country’s foreign direct investment (FDI) regime, Das said the government inflows to exceed to $55 billion last fiscal.

Stressing that the intention was to simplify government processes, he said the objective would be to fast track all applications in the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB).

“The twice monthly meetings of FIPB will continue even if we have just five applications. Proposals will be cleared as quickly as possible and the whole FIPB system is online. We don’t want any investor to visit North Block,” he said.

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