Amendment to the Act, sovereign guarantees, investment portfolio, realty holdings, and governance issues to shape valuation.
Ask rediffGURU and PF and MF expert Janak Patel your mutual fund and personal finance-related questions.
The combined market valuation of eight of the top-10 most valued firms surged Rs 1,21,270.83 crore last week, with Reliance Industries becoming the biggest gainer, in line with an outstanding rally in benchmark equity indices. Last week, the BSE benchmark jumped 1,027.54 points or 1.21 per cent. The BSE Sensex hit its record high of 85,978.25 on Friday.
Sixteen merchant banks are in the fray to act as book running lead managers (BRLM) for the initial public offering of Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC). These merchant banks will have to make a presentation before the Department of Investment and Public Asset Management (DIPAM) on August 24-25. The shortlisted banks are BNP Paribas, Citigroup Global Markets India, BofA Securities, Goldman Sachs (India) Securities, HSBC Securities and Capital Markets(India), J.P. Morgan India, Nomura Financial Advisory and Securities (India), Axis Capital, DAM Capital Advisors, HDFC Bank, ICICI Securities, IIFL Securities, JM Financial, Kotak Mahindra Capital, SBI Capital Market, and Yes Securities India.
For the initial public offering (IPO) of the Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC), the Centre has shortlisted 50-60 anchor investors, which include BlackRock, Sands Capital, Fidelity Investments, Standard Life, and JP Morgan, and will soon finalise its anchor book. The feedback from anchor investors has led to price discovery in LIC shares, valuing India's largest insurer at around Rs 7 trillion, said an official aware of the development. The "attractive valuation" is seen widening the investor base by providing an opportunity to more of them to participate in the IPO, the official added.
Taking a cue from Zomato's stellar initial public offering (IPO), through which it garnered a valuation of Rs 1 trillion, the government has asked its advisors and valuers to ascertain if the Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) should be valued at Rs 10 trillion or more. The government is looking to offload about 10 per cent stake in LIC through the IPO. At that valuation, the government stands to net at least Rs 1 trillion from LIC's proposed IPO, which will boost the Centre's efforts to meet its disinvestment target of Rs 1.75 trillion for the current financial year.
Insurance companies reported nearly 23 per cent growth in first year premium in the first quarter of financial year 2024-25, when compared to the same period last year, with market leader LIC leading the charge with 28 per cent growth. According to the data released by the Life Insurance Council, the new business premium (NBP) increased by 22.91 per cent year-on-year (Y-o-Y) to ~89,726.7 crore in Q1FY25 from ~73,004.87 crore in Q1 FY24, reflecting a robust demand for insurance policies in the country.
Ask rediffGURU and PF expert Milind Vadjikar your insurance, stocks, mutual fund and personal finance-related questions.
'From our perspective, it will bring additional customers and from their perspective, it will get them younger customers.'
Life insurers shifted their focus to selling high-value policies in October as the transition to new surrender value norms, effective October 1, limited their ability to roll out all products in their portfolio. This led to a 40 per cent year-on-year (Y-o-Y) drop in the number of policies sold in October. Additionally, distributors engaged in a fire sale of policies in September due to uncertainty about the impact of the new norms on their commission structures.
Under the new model, the surplus distribution in the participating policyholders' fund has been modified to 90:10 in a phased manner, wherein 90 per cent will go to policyholders and 10 per cent to shareholders. Further, 100 per cent of the surplus generated out of the non-participating business will be available for distribution to all shareholders.
Listing of LIC will help bring in greater transparency, public participation and also deepen the equity market.
The policies that have lapsed for more than two years and were not allowed to be revived earlier can also be revived now, LIC said in a statement.
Insurance giant LIC has fixed the price band at Rs 902-949 per share for the Rs 21,000 crore public offer that is likely to open on May 4, sources said. According to sources, Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) would offer a Rs 60 discount for policyholders and Rs 40 for retail investors and employees.
RBI's interest rate decision, quarterly earnings and global cues would be the major driving factors for equity markets this week, analysts said adding that the impact of the Union Budget could linger on this week. Trading activity of foreign investors will also be a key driver for the markets, experts noted. "US and India's manufacturing PMI for January to be released on Monday, will be the key macro data to watch out for.
The FM further said that the listing brings in more financial discipline among the entities.
With the lockdown being eased gradually, providing more and more digital solutions, for service delivery and procurement of new policies, is what the corporation is focussing on.
In absolute terms, the outstanding book value of NPAs of LIC in the debt portfolio across life, pension and unit-linked funds is to the tune of Rs 32,685.39 crore at the end of December 2019.
Investors in LIC's insurance and other schemes are receiving a lower rate of return because LIC is subsidising incompetence at best and malfeasance at worst in institutions such as IDBI Bank and IL&FS, says Jaimini Bhagwati.
DIIs owned equities worth Rs 73.5 trillion, just 1.9 per cent less than FPIs. This marks a significant change from a decade ago.
This is despite the private sector companies outperforming their public sector counterparts, reports Sachin P Mampatta.
rediffGURU T S Khurana answers readers' personal income tax queries.
The National Commission indicted LIC for working in cahoots with doctors for baseless certificates to repudiate claims and held this to be an unfair practice.
State-un insurer LIC has pared its stake in Infosys to 5.96 per cent, reducing its holding in the IT major in the last quarter with an estimated sale of shares worth over Rs 2,000 crore.
Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) on Friday got its first female managing director and another new MD.
'LIC's proposed investment will come out of what is technically called the 'policyholders funds'.' 'As the name implies, these monies belong to policyholders; that is, you, me and 25 crore others who have taken a total of 30 crore policies from LIC.' 'It is not the government's or LIC's money to play poker with,' says S Muralidharan, former managing director, BNP Paribas.
Children's plans contribute close to 10 per cent to the total premium collected through the 50-odd life insurance products across the country.
The initial public offer of Hyundai Motor India Ltd, the Indian arm of South Korean automaker Hyundai, got subscribed 2.37 times on the third day of the bidding on Thursday, helped by institutional buyers. This is the largest IPO in the country, surpassing LIC's initial share sale of Rs 21,000 crore. The Rs 27,870 crore initial share sale got bids for 23,63,26,937 shares against 9,97,69,810 shares on offer, translating into 2.37 times subscription, as per NSE data.
While IDBI Bank's 140 million customers and 1800-odd branches will come in handy for LIC to hawk insurance, the bank can use LIC's massive agent network to sell its retail loans. But if it is run the same way it had been in the past and LIC is a proxy of the government, then it has no future, says Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
The exposure, which is for the period ended September 2019, is across various platforms such as life funds, pension funds, and unit-linked funds.
Shares of Hyundai Motor India Ltd, the Indian arm of South Korean automaker Hyundai, on Tuesday made a muted market debut and further fell by nearly 6 per cent against the issue price of Rs 1,960. The stock listed at Rs 1,931, reflecting a decline of 1.47 per cent from the issue price on the BSE. Later, the stock made some recovery and hit a high of Rs 1,968.80, up 0.44 per cent.
The initial public offer of Hyundai Motor India Ltd, the Indian arm of South Korean automaker Hyundai, received an 18 per cent subscription on the first day of bidding on Tuesday. The Rs 27,870 crore initial share sale received bids for 1,77,89,457 shares against 9,97,69,810 shares on offer, as per NSE data. The IPO received over 9 lakh applications on the first day.
Among the new entries, the largest by market capitalisation are LIC, Avenue Supermarts (DMart), Adani Green Energy, Zomato and Jio Financial Services.
Insurer has also made fresh investments since December 2015 quarter when RBI told banks to recognise bad loans
Private insurance firms say, over the past few years, they have been investing on digital technologies to reach semi urban and rural areas.
The next step for the Life Insurance Corporation of India is to approach market regulator Sebi, as the bank, which is also state-owned, is a listed entity.
The Government is likely to stand guarantee to Life Insurance Corporation for risk management losses instead of amending LIC Act to allow it to tap the market or infuse fresh capital.
Hyundai Motor India Ltd, the Indian arm of South Korean automaker Hyundai, has received capital markets regulator Sebi's approval to float an initial public offering (IPO), people familiar with the development said on Wednesday. This development marks a significant milestone for the Indian industry, as it is the first automaker initial share-sale in over two decades, following Japanese automaker Maruti Suzuki's listing in 2003.
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has announced a dollar-rupee two-year sell-buy swap auction for $5 billion on March 8, which will suck out rupee liquidity from the system. The swap will be in the nature of a simple sell/buy foreign exchange from the RBI side, in which a bank will buy US dollars from the central bank and simultaneously agree to sell the same amount of US dollars at the end of the swap period. "With a view to elongating the maturity profile of its forward book and smoothen the receivables relating to forward assets, it has been decided to undertake sell/buy swap auction of $5 billion on March 8, 2022," the RBI said in a statement. The auction cut-off will be based on the premium amount in paisa terms up to two decimal points.
According to sources, in a January 6 letter to the department of financial services under the finance ministry, LIC said it wanted to stop sponsoring LIC Nomura Mutual Fund, and might offer some of its stake in LIC Housing Finance to other shareholders.
