ICICI Prudential files for biggest IPO in six years

ICICI Prudential Life Insurance Company on Monday, filed draft papers with markets regulator Sebi to raise an estimated Rs 5,000 crore, the first by an insurer in India and the biggest in nearly six years.

The public offer comprises around 18 crore 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 18,134,105 equity shares (10 per cent of the offer) for shareholders of ICICI Bank, who hold 68 per cent of the stake in the venture. The size of the initial public offer is estimated to be worth around Rs 5,000 crore, sources said.

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. This would be the biggest initial public offering after Coal India.

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.

A maximum 50 per cent of the issue size will be reserved for qualified institutional buyers , out of which up to 60 per cent for anchor investors and 5 per cent for MF players.