The Indian government-run insurer Life Insurance Corporation of India filed draft papers with the market regulator on Sunday, announcing its plans to sell 5% of its shares to raise nearly $8 billion in the country’s biggest IPO.
The Narendra Modi’s government plans to sell about 316 million shares in the wholly-owned insurer, the draft prospectus said. Its IPO is the latest in Modi’s privatization drive to fund its expansionary budget. The firm’s so-called “embedded value,” a key metric among insurers, is pegged at $71.56 billion. The market value of insurers is typically between three and five times of the embedded value. In the initial public offering, LIC does not plan to issue any new shares, it said.
The initial public offering of LIC, which is bein …
