The nation's top insurer and largest institutional investor in the stock markets, Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) has emerged as the biggest anchor investor in the initial public offering (IPO) of HDFC Bank's subsidiary HDB Financial Services, according to a disclosure. The total amount allocated to LIC in the anchor book portion is around Rs 220 crore, which represents 6.53 percent of the total allocations.
The NBFC raised a total of Rs 3,369 crore from a combined list of 141 anchor investors ahead of its issue at a price of Rs 740/share. The list includes the likes of ICICI Prudential Banking and Financial Services Fund, SBI Flexi Cap Fund, Baillie Gifford Pacific Fund A Sub Fund of Baillie Gifford Overseas Growth Funds ICVC, Government Pension Fund Global, Goldman Sachs Funds- Goldman Sachs India Equity Portfolio, Aditya Birla Sun Life Trustee Private Limited A/C Aditya Birla Sun Life Equity Savings Fund, Kotak ELSS Tax Saver Fund, Fidelity Investment Trust Fidelity Emerging Asia Fund, several among others.
On June 20, Moneycontrol was the first to report that LIC was eyeing participation in the anchor book portion, an extremely rare bet by the insurance behemoth in the IPO of a private sector firm.
In an IPO, anchor book investors are typically institutional investors who are allocated a significant number of shares at a fixed price before the issue opens for public subscription. Anchor investors must make a minimum investment of Rs 10 crore.
HDB Financial Services will launch it's much anticipated Rs 12,500 crore IPO - India's biggest ever by an NBFC - between June 25 to 27. The price band has been set at Rs 700-Rs 740/share.
On June 16, Moneycontrol was also the first to report that HDB Financial Services was likely to launch its IPO by the end of June, targeting a post-money valuation of around $7.2 billion (around Rs 62,000 crore) at the higher end of the price band.
LIC, which has supported multiple public sector IPO's and disinvestment programmes by the government in the past, has bet on the record Rs 27,870 crore Hyundai Motor India IPO (outside the anchor book portion) and the Brookfield REIT QIP.
According to the DRHP, the HDB Financial IPO syndicate is a large one of 12 investment banks including JM Financial, BNP Paribas, BofA Securities, Jefferies, Goldman Sachs, HSBC Securities, Nomura, IIFL Securities, Morgan Stanley, Nuvama, Motilal Oswal and UBS. Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas is the company counsel.
On June 5, the insurance behemoth announced that the company's current executive director Ramakrishnan Chander has taken charge as its Chief Investment Officer. Earlier, on May 15, it announced the appointment of Ratnakar Patnaik as well as Dinesh Pant as its managing directors (MDs).
Life Insurance Corporation of India reported a 38 percent rise in its net profit for the fourth quarter ending March 2025, reaching Rs 19,013 crore. This marks a rise of 38 percent from the Rs 13,763 crore net profit recorded during the same quarter in the previous fiscal year.
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