LIC Gets SEBI’s Nod To Launch India’s Biggest IPO: Report

Life Insurance Corporation (LIC), the country’s biggest insurer got Securities and Exchange Board of India’s (SEBI’s) approval to float India’s biggest Initial Public Offering (IPO), The Economic Times reported citing sources. 

LIC had filed the Draft Red Herring Prospectus (DRHP) with SEBI on February 13 this year. Through the IPO the government is looking to sell its 5 per cent stake that would fetch over Rs 63,000 crore through the exchequer. It is part of the government’s strategy to meet the disinvestment target of Rs 78,000 crore for this fiscal. The LIC IPO was earlier expected to take place on March 11. However, with the recent Russia-Ukraine conflict the IPO might get delayed.

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in a recent interview with The Hindu BusinessLine had said, “When I last commented on this matter, the tension was building up. Now there’s a full-scale war. Therefore, I need to go back and review the situation. Ideally, I’d like to go ahead with it, because it is something we’ve planned for some time purely based on Indian considerations. But now, if global considerations warrant that I need to look at it, I wouldn’t mind looking at it again." 

If the LIC IPO gets delayed, the government is likely to miss the disinvestment target by a huge margin, as per the report. The government this fiscal has raised Rs 12,030 crore of its disinvestment target through the strategic sale of Air India.