LIC IPO subscribed 0.29 times till noon on first day of bidding

LIC public offer, the country's biggest-ever IPO, was subscribed 0.29 times till noon by investors on the first day of bidding on Wednesday.

Of the total, the policyholder portion was subscribed fully while the reserved employees' portion was subscribed 0.49 times, as per the data on stock exchanges.

Qualified Institutional Buyer (QIB) and Non-Institutional Investor (NII) portion has received a tepid response so far.

The LIC initial public offering (IPO), now open for retail and institutional investors, is set to close on May 9.

The government aims to generate about Rs 21,000 crore by diluting its 3.5 per cent stake in the insurance behemoth.

LIC has fixed the price band at Rs 902-949 per equity share for the issue. The offer includes a reservation for eligible employees and policyholders. The retail investors and eligible employees will get a discount of Rs 45 per equity share, and policyholders will get a discount of Rs 60 per equity share.

The share sale is through an offer-for-sale (OFS) of up to 22.13 crore equity shares. The shares are likely to be listed on May 17.

LIC has cornered a little over Rs 5,627 crore from anchor investors led primarily by domestic institutions. Anchor Investors (AIs) portion (5,92,96,853 equity shares) was subscribed at Rs 949 per equity share.

It has reduced its IPO size to 3.5 per cent from 5 per cent decided earlier due to the prevailing market condition. Even after the reduced size of about Rs 20,557 crore, LIC IPO is going to be the biggest initial public offering ever in the country.

So far, the amount mobilised from the IPO of Paytm in 2021 was the largest ever at Rs 18,300 crore, followed by Coal India (2010) at nearly Rs 15,500 crore and Reliance Power (2008) at Rs 11,700 crore.

(With inputs from PTI)