LIC IPO fully subscribed on Day 2

LIC's public offer, the country's biggest-ever IPO, was fully subscribed on the second day of bidding on Thursday.

Against 16,20,78,067 shares on offer, 16,68,60,765 bids were received -- translating into a subscription of 1.03 times, as per data on stock exchanges as of 7 pm.

However, the Qualified Institutional Buyer (QIB) and Non-Institutional Investor (NII) portions have received a tepid response so far.

Non-institutional investors' segment was subscribed 47 per cent, while QIBs' portion was slightly lower at 40 per cent.

Retail individual investors picked up nearly 93 per cent of the 6.9 crore shares set aside for this segment.

Of the total, the policyholders' portion was subscribed a little over three times, while that for employees was subscribed 2.21 times.

LIC has fixed the price band at Rs 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 Rs 45 per equity share, while policyholders will get a discount of Rs 60 per share.

LIC public offer will remain open for subscription even on weekend to enable people to participate in the mega IPO of the state-owned insurer.

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

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

LIC 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 about Rs 20,557 crore, 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 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 was formed by merging and nationalising 245 private life insurance companies on September 1, 1956, with an initial capital of Rs 5 crore.

Its product portfolio comprises 32 individual plans (16 participating and 16 non-participating) and seven individual optional rider benefits.

The insurer's group product portfolio comprises 11 group products.

As of December 2021, LIC had a market share of 61.6 per cent in terms of premiums or gross written premium, 61.4 per cent in terms of new business premium, 71.8 per cent in terms of the number of individual policies issued and 88.8 per cent in terms of the number of group policies issued.