India’s biggest IPO gets strong demand from anchor investors

India’s biggest IPO gets strong demand from anchor investors

The IPO of India’s biggest insurer, Life Insurance Corporation (LIC), has got off to a good start, with the $732 million of shares reserved for so-called anchor investors oversubscribed at the upper end of the price range, a banking source said. The Indian government has said it expects to raise up to $2.74 billion, just a third of its original target, from selling a 3.5 per cent stake in LIC in the country’s biggest initial public offering (IPO). Anchor investors are high-profile institutional investors that are allotted shares before the subscription opens for retail and other investors, and have to commit to holding their shares for a certain period after listing. LIC’s offering is set to open for other investors on May 4 and will close on May 9. The indicative price range has been set at 902 to 949 rupees per share, with 56 billion rupees ($732 million) of shares set aside for anchor investors. Norwegian wealth fund Norges Bank Investment Management and Singapore sovereign wealth fund GIC have subscribed to the anchor book, the source said. Alongside other global funds, domestic mutual fund houses such as HDFC mutual fund, SBI, ICICI and Kotak have also come in as