LIC IPO subscribed 1.66 times on day 4; all categories barring QIB fully subscribed

New Delhi: Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) public offer was subscribed 1.66 times the offer size by Saturday end, the fourth day of the public issue which opened for bidding on May 4 and is set to close on May 9. The price band of the issue is Rs 902-949 per share. The offer got overall bids for 26,83,18,335 shares against 16,20,78,067 offered by the promoter Government of India, which is divesting a 3.5% stake in the company.

The policyholder portion has so far seen a demand of 10,33,78,530 shares totalling 4.67 times of 2,21,37,492 reserved for the category; the employee portion was oversubscribed 3.54 times. The portion reserved for retail investors also stands fully subscribed, receiving bids for 10,06,96,440 shares against 6,91,79,663 on offer. Qualified Institutional Buyers (QIBs) and non-institutional investors were least enthusiastic as the categories got subscribed 0.67 times and 1.08 times respectively.

The state-owned insurance company has reserved 10% of the public issue size for policyholders and 5% for employees of the company.

Policyholders will get a discount of Rs 60 per share discount for its policyholders while employees will get a discount of Rs 45 per share. LIC has reserved up to 35 per cent of its total IPO size for retail investors. The LIC board on April 23, 2022, slashed the issue size to 3.5% from 5%. It means that the government will dilute only 3.5 per cent of its shares worth Rs 21,000 crore compared to 5 per cent shares announced earlier.

The LIC IPO come at a time when global markets are in a risk-off mode with central banks raising interest rates and investors selling shares amid geopolitical uncertainty which has exacerbated high inflation scenario.