A year after listing, LIC scorecard lacks lustre

State-owned Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC), which completes one year of its listing on Tuesday, presents a sorry scorecard as far as its stock market performance goes.

Shares of the insurance behemoth are down 40 per cent over their issue price of Rs 949 to Rs 567 apiece.

The Sensex, on the other hand, has risen 14 per cent in the past one year.

The stock price fall has led to a market cap erosion of LIC by Rs 2.4 trillion.

At the IPO price, LIC was valued at Rs 6 trillion, while its current market value is less than Rs 3.6 trillion.

At the time of listing, it was the country’s fifth most valued company — behind Reliance Industries, TCS, HDFC Bank, and Infosys; now it’s ranked thirteenth.

LIC’s Rs 20,500-crore IPO, the country’s largest ever, had attracted the highest ever applications at 6.1 million, the bulk of them were from small investors and policyholders.

However, LIC’s poor showing after the listing has seen small investors lose interest, with its retail investor count dropping by nearly 700,000 in just five quarters.

LIC’s new business premium dropped about 50 per cent year-on-year in April 2023 to Rs 5,810 crore due to a sharp fall in group single premium, though private sector companies showed a growth of 8.5 per cent.