LIC IPO could result in job losses, social spending, trade union warns

The sale, which is set to be the country's biggest, could value the company at as much as $261 billion, surpassing Reliance Industries Ltd.

The mega initial public offering of India’s biggest state-backed insurer could result in job losses and impact the company’s social infrastructure spending plans, according to one of its largest trade unions.

Life Insurance Corp. “was formed to provide insurance to rural and social and economically backward people,” Rajesh Kumar, general secretary of All India LIC Employees’ Federation, said in an interview with Bloomberg TV on Tuesday. The company, which has been funding capital-intensive infrastructure projects such as roads, railways and power for more than six decades, may instead focus on “profit-maximizing investments” after the IPO, Kumar said. 

Prime Minister Narendra