ICICI Prudential Life Insurance Company has received markets regulator SEBI’s approval to raise an estimated Rs 5,000 crore through an initial public offering, the first by an insurer in India and the biggest in nearly six years.
The company, which filed the draft red herring prospectus with the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) on July 18, got the regulator approval on September 2, as per the latest update. The insurer is a venture between banking major ICICI Bank and UK’s Prudential Corporation Holdings.
Singapore’s Temasek and PremjiInvest also are shareholders. ICICI Bank has around 68 per cent stake in the insurer, while that of Prudential is 26 per cent. The public offer comprises up to 18,13,41,058 equity shares of ICICI Prudential Life Insurance Company, representing about 12.65 per cent of its equity share capital for cash, through an offer for sale by ICICI Bank, as per the draft papers.
The offer includes a proposed reservation of up to 1,81,34,105 equity shares (10 per cent of the offer) for shareholders of ICICI Bank. Prudential will not dilute its stake in the IPO of ICICI Prudential Life Insurance Company while ICICI Bank will be selling its 12.65 per cent stake in the insurer.
The size of the IPO is estimated to be worth around Rs 5,000 crore, sources said. This would be the biggest initial public offering after Coal India. The state-run firm had hit the capital markets in 2010 to raise over Rs 15,000 crore. Last November, ICICI Bank sold nearly 6 per cent stake in ICICI Prudential to Temasek and PremjiInvest. The shares were offloaded for around Rs 1,950 crore valuing the insurer at Rs 32,500 crore. PremjiInvest holds 4 per cent in the insurance company while Temasek owns 2 per cent in the firm.
At the end of March this year, the assets under management of ICICI Prudential — which started operations in fiscal year 2001 — stood at Rs 1,039.39 billion, as per its website. Bank of America Merrill Lynch and ICICI Securities are global book running lead merchant bankers (BRLM) to the issue. Others are CLSA, Deutsche, Edelweiss, HSBC, IIFL, JM Financial and SBI Capital Markets.
