Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) has reduced its exposure in state-owned NMDC to 11.69% from 13.69% earlier through open market transaction. The deal was executed at an average price of Rs 119.37 per share.
LIC has garnered Rs 702 crore after it sold about 5.88 lakh shares in the national miner. NMDC is engaged in exploration and production of iron ore.
Apart from NMDC, LIC has also diluted its stake in TIL Ltd to 8% from 10.1% earlier. The company has sold 2.12 lakh shares in the open market, taking home Rs 3 crore.
“The shareholding in TIL Ltd has diluted from 10,22,985 to 8,10,038 Equity Shares decreasing its shareholding from 10.199% to 8.076% of the paid-up capital,” the company further said.
The state-owned insurer is one of the largest domestic institutional investors in equities with 25% of its corpus set aside for equity investments. LIC manages about 44.34 lakh crore of assets under its portfolio as of December 2022
The yield on investments on policyholders funds excluding unrealised gains was 8.58% for nine months ending December 2022.
The insurer has recently come under scanner over its equity exposure to Adani group stocks following a steep fall in share prices. The insurer owns stake in 7 group companies – Adani Enterprises, Adani Ports, Adani Total Gas, Adani Transmission, Adani Green Energy, ACC and Ambuja Cement.
LIC’s total equity investment value in Adani Group is Rs 30,127 crore, which is less than 1% of its total book value as per the disclosures made to the exchanges.
The top management of LIC has recently held a meeting with the Adani Group over issues surrounding the conglomerate. After the meeting, LIC Chairman MR Kumar said he is more confident about Adani group’s business prospects.
LIC’s investments in Adani stocks were at once on the edge of a notional loss, but have recovered since then.
Source: Economic Times