Government fixes LIC issue price at Rs 949 a share

New Delhi: The government has fixed the issue price of LIC shares at Rs 949 apiece, the upper end of the IPO price band, ahead of the listing of the country's largest insurer on May 17.

However, LIC policyholders and retail investors have got the shares at a price of Rs 889 and Rs 904 a piece, respectively. The Initial Public Offering (IPO) of Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) closed on May 9 and shares were allocated to bidders on May 12.

The government sold over 22.13 crore shares or 3.5 per cent stake in LIC through the IPO at a price band of Rs 902-949 a share. The retail investors and eligible employees of LIC were offered a discount of Rs 45 per equity share over the issue price, while policyholders got a discount of Rs 60 per share. As per the prospectus filed by LIC on May 12, the offer price of the share sale has been fixed at Rs 949 per equity share. Shares were allocated to policyholders and retail investors after applying the discount applicable to them. The share sale fetched the government around Rs 20,557 crore. The LIC IPO -- India's largest to date -- closed with nearly 3 times subscription, predominately lapped up by retail and institutional buyers, but foreign investor participation remained muted.

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. LIC had last month reduced its IPO size to 3.5 per cent from 5 per cent decided earlier due to the prevailing choppy market conditions. Even after the reduced size of over Rs 20,557 crore, LIC IPO is the biggest initial public offering ever in the country. LIC will list on the stock exchanges and its shares will start trading from May 17.