The Board of insurance behemoth Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) is meeting on Tuesday to finalise certain issue details for its upcoming mega initial public offering (IPO), largest ever of the country, to be launched on May 4.
Reservation portion for policyholders, employees
Besides giving its stamp of approval for the launch dates, the Board is also expected to finalise the exact reservation portion for policyholders and its employees. The quantum of discounts that may be offered for certain categories such as policyholders, employees and retail shareholders are expected to be finalised at the Board meeting, sources said.
The final price band for the mega IPO— where government proposes to offer 3.5 percentage shareholding through offer for sale route— is expected to be decided today. Market buzz is that the price band may come in at ₹ 950-960 given that government proposes to offer 22.14 crore shares and is eyeing mop up of ₹ 21,000 crore. These details are required for the government to file its Red Herring Prospectus (RHP) with SEBI on Tuesday or latest by Wednesday.
Once approved by the LIC Board, the issue dates, reservation and discounts will be announced by Wednesday.
It maybe recalled that LIC Board had on Saturday approved reducing the size of the IPO to 3.5 per cent from earlier proposed 5 per cent in the wake of markets being choppy due to geo-political tensions caused by Russia-Ukraine conflict. The Centre is now looking to raise ₹ 21,000 crore through the IPO after valuing insurance behemoth at ₹ 6 lakh crore, which is about 1.1 times the embedded value of ₹ 5.4 lakh crore computed by Milliman as of September 30,2021.