LIC insurance for New India Assurance's mega IPO

State-owned giant makes Rs 9,000-cr bid on first day of latter's offer

Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) has again acted as a white knight, to ensure success of The New India Assurance Company’s Rs 9,600-crore Initial Public Offering (IPO), through which the Centre is eyeing Rs 7,680 crore.

New India garnered full subscription on Wednesday for its IPO, the country’s fourth largest. It was the issue’s first day and got bids for 125 million shares, as against 120 mn on offer. However, the bulk of the bids were from domestic institutional investors (DIIs), mainly LIC. Excluding DII bids, all others were worth a little less than Rs 230 crore, about 2.4 per