LIC IPO: Retail portion subscribed fully

New Delhi

The retail portion of LIC IPO, the country’s biggest-ever, was subscribed fully in the first hour of bidding on day three on Friday.

The Retail Individual Investor (RII) category garnered over 7.2 crore bid, as against 6.9 crore shares set aside for this segment, as per the data on stock exchanges at 11:36 am on Friday.

The segment was thus fully subscribed.

However, the Qualified Institutional Buyer (QIB) and Non-Institutional Investor (NII) portion has been receiving a tepid response. Non-institutional investors’ portion was subscribed 50%, while QIBs’ portion is still lower at 40%.

The policyholder portion was subscribed over three times, while the reserved employees’ segment was subscribed nearly two and half times.

Overall, the IPO is more than fully subscribed as it has received 17,98,42,980 bids, as against 16,20,78,067 shares on sale.

The LIC initial public offering (IPO) will close on May 9.

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

LIC has fixed the price band at ₹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 ₹45 per equity share, and policyholders will get a discount of ₹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 ₹5,627 crore from anchor investors led primarily by domestic institutions. Anchor Investors (AIs) portion (5,92,96,853 equity shares) was subscribed at ₹949 per equity share.

It has reduced its IPO size to 3.5%, from 5% decided earlier, due to the prevailing market condition. Even after the reduced size of about ₹20,557 crore, the 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 ₹18,300 crore, followed by Coal India (2010) at nearly ₹15,500 crore and Reliance Power (2008) at ₹11,700 crore.