India puts Life Insurance Corp’s IPO on fast track

India puts Life Insurance Corp’s IPO on fast track

NEW DELHI - India has put the initial public offering of the country’s biggest insurer Life Insurance Corp of India (LIC) on a fast track while the privatisation of two state banks is mired in procedural issues, two government and one industry source said. The listing of LIC is set to be India's biggest ever IPO, with the government aiming to raise 800 billion-900 billion rupees ($11 bln-12.2 bln) from its stake sale. In all, the government plans to raise 1.75 trillion rupees from a privatisation programme in the current fiscal year ending in March, one of the sources said. It has selected 10 investment banks including Goldman Sachs, Citigroup and SBI Capital Market to handle the LIC initial public offering, the two government sources said. The sources declined to be identified as they were not authorised to speak to media. "The potential size of the IPO is expected to be far larger than any precedent in Indian markets," one of the sources said, adding the LIC IPO has been put on a fast track as it could help partly meet budgetary spending plans. The government plans to spend 34.83 trillion rupees, including capital spending of 5.54 trillion rupees in