TMS Ep108: LIC IPO, Vaibhav Gupta of Udaan, nervous FIIs, OTT platform

After two years of painstaking preparation, the government on Sunday finally approached SEBI to sell 5% stake in Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) through Initial Public Offering. It expects to collect close to Rs 60,000 crore through this move -- a sum which will help the government meet its disinvestment target and bridge its fiscal deficit which is widening due to an increased infrastructure push. Find out more about the IPO of the country’s largest insurer and also if it is the right time to go public.

Another promising IPO may also hit the primary markets soon. Though not as huge as LIC, the IPO of business-to-business e-commerce platform Udaan has all the potential to impress investors. In conversation with Business Standard’s Nivedita Mookerji, Udaan’s co-founder and its newly-appointed CEO Vaibhav Gupta tells us about his firm’s IPO plans and how was the Union Budget for the start-up universe.

After the IPOs and primary market, let us move on to the secondary market. Sensex tanked over 1,700 points on Monday amid global sell off. Foreign institutional investors, or FIIs, are the backbone of Indian equity markets. Over the past few months, they have been on a selling spree across most emerging markets, including India. What’s making them nervous, and will the trend reverse? Take a dive into how FIIs are viewing India as an investment destination amid rising headwinds.

After primary and secondary markets, let’s turn to entertainment. Ajay Devgn on Monday stirred a debate by saying that actors’ move towards OTT platforms “was more about finding the right subject” rather than the pandemic. Find out more about OTT platforms and regulations that govern it in this episode of the podcast. 

Watch video