SBI Life Insurance shares made a strong debut on stock markets with the share price gaining 5 per cent on their issue price of Rs 700. SBI Life recently completed its Rs 8,400 crore Initial Public Offering (IPO) which was subscribed 3.58 times between September 20 and September 22.
On Tuesday, shares of SBI Life gained 5 per cent on the National Stock Exchange (NSE) to the day’s high of Rs 735 against its issue price of Rs 700 apiece. The stock hit a high of Rs 740 and low of Rs 719 in early trade. It was trading at Rs 721.85 at 11:45 am, up 1.80 percent over IPO price.
SBI Life is the second listing by a life insurer after ICICI Prudential, and its Rs 8,400 crore IPO the biggest public offer in the last seven years. It is also the biggest share sale in India after Coal India’s Rs 15, 200 crore IPO. Its strong debut was warranted given its subscription and demand in the grey market.
SBI Life raised about Rs 8,400 crore at the upper hand of the price band after fixing the issue price at Rs 685-700 per share. SBI Life is a joint venture between India's largest lender State Bank of India (SBI) and BNP Paribas Cardif (BNPPC), the insurance holding company of France.
The book running lead managers to the issue were JM Financial Institutional Securities, Axis Capital, BNP Paribas, Citigroup Global Markets India, Deutsche Equities India, ICICI Securities, Kotak Mahindra Capital Company and SBI Capital Markets.
SBI Life Insurance raised Rs 2,226 crore from 69 anchor investors, including BlackRock, Canada Pension Fund, Government of Singapore, Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, HSBC, HDFC MF, ICICI Prudential MF, Kotak MF, Reliance MF, Axis MF and UTI MF.
SBI Life said its promoters have offloaded up to 12 crore shares of face value of Rs 10 each through the offer of sale route. State Bank of India has diluted up to 8 crore shares while BNP Paribas Cardif SA sold up to 4 crore shares. The company said it wants to achieve the benefits of listing equity shares on the stock exchanges and to carry out the sale of up to 12 crore equity shares by the selling shareholders.
