LIC share bounces, but far from its exchange listing price

Ever since its listing on the exchanges on May 17, with a discount of over 8 per cent over its issue price, the insurance company’s share prices have been on a decline and its onward journey has been rough, barring some recovery in the past few sessions.

It is currently trading at Rs 705, as against its listing price of Rs 867, which implies a decline of nearly 19 per cent. It is, however, 26 per cent lower than its initial public offering issue price of Rs 949.

It has lately managed to recover from its all-time low of Rs 650.

Through the IPO route, the Centre had offloaded 3.5 per cent of its stake in the insurance major. The IPO valued the company at worth Rs 6 lakh crore.

With tumbling of the share prices, the market capitalization in terms of value has dipped to Rs 446,323 crore now, according to stock exchange data.

Established on September 1, 1956, the oldest and the largest insurance firm was introduced with a claimed objective of reaching out to all insurable individuals in the country, and providing them with adequate financial cover at a reasonable cost.

Today, LIC functions with 2,048 branch offices, 113 divisional offices, 8 zonal offices, 1381 satellite offices, along with the Corporate office, the insurance major’s website says.

Stock market sentiments have been weak even before the LIC IPO was launched majorly due to the ongoing conflict in Ukraine and related headwinds.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine along with the largescale outflow of foreign portfolio investors from India has certainly distressed the domestic stock markets. Despite such volatile circumstances, the LIC IPO was so far the largest public offer in India.

The hike in interest rates by central bank Reserve Bank of India amid rising inflation, and the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war could be possibly some of the major reasons why the LIC share prices have been declining. Many analysts believe the dip could also be in line with the ongoing correction in the benchmark indices – Sensex and Nifty, which essentially means the underperforming exchange debut may just be a reflection of the current global markets, instead of the company’s underlying fundamentals.

Indian equity market has been experiencing a perfect storm for the past few weeks on account of tightening monetary policy triggered by rising inflation, high crude oil prices, depreciation of the rupee, fund outflows by foreign investors, as well as widening current account deficit.

So far in 2022, they have sold equities worth Rs 221,910 crore, NSDL data showed. During the same period, Sensex and Nifty declined almost 10 per cent each.