ICICI Bank shares up 2% as insurance arm gets Sebi nod for IPO

The shares of ICICI Bank surged over 2% as its insurance arm, ICICI Prudential Life Insurance Company received market regulator the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) approval for Initial Public Offering (IPO).

At 1509 hours, the shares of the bank was trading at Rs 277.85 per piece, up 2%, or Rs 5.40 on BSE.

ICICI Prudential Life Insurance Company is planning to raise around Rs 5000 crore through an IPO. This will be the first insurance company in India to be listed on equity markets and the biggest in nearly six years.

In July-mid, ICICI Pru had filed a draft red herring prospectus with the Sebi. 

ICICI Bank holds 68% of stake in its insurance arm, 26% is own by UK-based Pru. Plc and the rest of the stake are owned by Azim Premji Trust and Singapore-based Temasek. 

It has filed for a public offer of up to 181,341,058 equity shares of ICICI Prudential Life Insurance Company Limited, representing approximately 12.65% of its equity share capital, for cash, through an offer for sale by ICICI Bank.

To the issue, the global book running lead merchant bankers (BRLM) are Bank of America Merrill Lynch and ICICI Securities. Others are CLSA, Deutsche, Edelweiss, HSBC, IIFL, JM Financial and SBI Capital Markets.

A maximum 50% of the issue size will be reserved for qualified institutional buyers (QIBs), out of which up to 60% for anchor investors and 5% for mutual fund players. Besides, 35% of total offer size will be set aside for retail investors, with the remaining 15% for non-institutional investors.