SBI Life Insurance Co. Ltd on Monday filed the draft red herring prospectus for its initial public offering (IPO), joining several other insurance companies headed for the stock market.
In an offer for sale, SBI and BNP Paribas will sell 80 million and 40 million shares respectively, amounting to a combined 12% stake. SBI Life is not raising any primary capital.
The IPO could see SBI Life raise more than $1 billion (about Rs6,500 crore), a Bloomberg story quoted bankers as saying.
The company has hired JM Financial Institutional Securities Ltd, Axis Capital Ltd, BNP Paribas, Citigroup Global Markets India Pvt. Ltd, Deutsche Equities India Pvt. Ltd, ICICI Securities Ltd, Kotak Mahindra Capital Co. Ltd, SBI Capital Markets Ltd and Karvy Computershare Pvt. Ltd to manage the share sale.
Based in Mumbai, SBI Life was founded as a joint venture between State Bank of India (SBI) and BNP Paribas Cardiff in March 2001. It offers a range of life insurance and pension products.
In December, it sold a 3.9% stake to investors KKR and Temasek for around Rs1,794 crore. The transaction valued the company at Rs46,000 crore.
Indian companies have raised a total of $10 billion in the first half of 2017 by selling equity and equity-linked securities, a 127.8% increase from a year ago, according to a report by Thomson Reuters.
On 14 July, ICICI Lombard General Insurance Co. Ltd, the non-life insurance joint venture between ICICI Bank Ltd and Fairfax Financial Holdings Ltd filed its draft red herring prospectus.
The two shareholders plan to sell a combined 19% stake through the IPO.
SBI Life will be the second life insurance company to launch a public offering after ICICI Prudential Life Insurance Co. Ltd’s Rs6,000 crore IPO last year.
Several other insurance companies, including state-owned ones, are queuing up to launch IPOs.
In April, Mint had reported that New India Assurance Co. Ltd and General Insurance Corp. of India Ltd (GIC) had hired investment banks to manage their IPOs as the government seeks to pare its stake in the state-run insurers.
The government is likely to raise more than Rs10,000 crore by selling its shares through the public offerings.
Reliance General Insurance Ltd, the non-life insurance arm of Reliance Capital, is also planning to list, the company said last month.
Source: Mint