Winning Bizness Desk

Mumbai. The government will sell its 3.5 per cent stake in the initial public offering (IPO) of public sector insurance company Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) next month. Government stake sale is expected to raise around Rs 21,000 crore during the IPO, which opens in the first week of May, an official said. For its issue, LIC can file a final approval application with market regulator SEBI by Wednesday.

Regarding the issue of LIC, the official added that LIC's IPO is likely to hit the market in the first week of May. During this time the government will sell its 3.5 percent stake in LIC. However, regulatory approval is yet to be taken for this.

LIC had filed a draft issue document with the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) in February last. At that time LIC had said that the government would sell 5 per cent stake i.e. 316 crore shares in this insurance company.

However, due to the volatility in the stock markets on account of the Russia-Ukraine war, the IPO of LIC was postponed for some time. In view of the changed situation, the government has been forced to bring down the issue size to 3.5 per cent.

The reservation, discount, issue date and issue price in the issue for LIC policyholders and employees will be known by Wednesday, the official said.