At present, even though foreign institutional investors are allowed to hold up to 74% of private insurance companies and up to 20% of state-owned banks, they are not permitted to own shares in LIC. Enabling this would allow foreign pension funds, insurance companies and mutual funds to participate in the IPO of India’s largest life insurer. For instance, food delivery startup Zomato paid $31 million in fees for listing earlier this year, according to Dealogic. The low fee, however, has not been a deterrent, with nearly all the major banks barring Morgan Stanley queuing up. It is the biggest IPO in recent times and will be probably the biggest, say for another 5 years,” said a merchant banker.

Source: MetroXpress September 08, 2021 08:55 UTC