Government may reduce LIC IPO size by 40%: Report

The size of Life Insurance Corporation of India’s (LIC) initial public offering (IPO) may be slashed by 40 percent, Bloomberg reported.

The government is considering cutting the size from Rs 55,000-60,000 crore to Rs 30,000 crore .

And it is likely to take a call on the timing of the IPO within this week. LIC had filed its draft papers for IPO on February 13.

The government has time till May 12 to launch the LIC IPO without filing fresh papers with market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) and if it misses the window available with it, LIC would have to file fresh papers with SEBI giving the results of December quarter and also update the embedded value.

Also Read | LIC India’s profit rises to Rs 235 crore in December quarter

The sale of 31.6 crore shares in the country's largest insurer was originally planned for March but the Russia-Ukraine war postponed it. The issue will reserve 35 percent of its offer for retail investors, 10 percent for policyholders, and five percent for LIC.

The LIO IPO would contribute a major chunk to the budgeted divestment proceeds in the current fiscal year. The government has pegged divestment receipts at Rs 65,000 crore for 2022-23, up from Rs 13,531 crore last fiscal.