ICICI Pru IPO closes on high note; oversubscribed 10.5 times

Generating robust demand from investors, ICICI Prudential Life Insurance's Rs 6,057-crore IPO, the first by an insurer in India, today closed with over 10-time subscription for shares offered to public.

The shares on offer for the public got subscription worth Rs 46,298.34 crore, which along with shares worth Rs 1,635 crore already allocated to anchor investors, have taken the total bid amount to Rs 47,933.34 crore.

The public issue got million plus applications third in 2016-17 after Larsen & Toubro Infotech and RBL Bank.

The IPO received bids for 1,38,58,52,468 shares against the total issue size of 13,23,78,973 shares, data available with the NSE till 1930 hrs showed.

The quota set aside for qualified institutional buyers (QIBs) was oversubscribed 11.83 times, while for non- institutional investors category it was 28.55 times, sources said.

Retail portion was oversubscribed 1.37 times and ICICI Bank shareholders 12.20 times. The offer is scheduled to close today and is being offered in a price band of Rs 300-334 per share.

Ahead of the IPO, ICICI Prudential allocated over 4.89 crore shares at Rs 334, the top-end of the price band, aggregating Rs 1,635.33 crore to a clutch of anchor investors.

The public offer comprises of up to 18,13,41,058 equity shares of ICICI Prudential Life Insurance Company, including a reservation of up to 1,81,34,105 equity shares (10% of the offer) for shareholders of ICICI Bank.

The offer would constitute 12.63% of the company's post-offer paid-up equity share capital. At the upper end of the price band, the offer is worth Rs 6,057 crore.

This is the biggest initial public offering after Coal India, which had hit the capital markets in 2010 to raise over Rs 15,000 crore.

The company, which filed the draft red herring prospectus with Sebi on July 18, got the regulator's go-ahead on September 2. The insurer is a venture between banking major ICICI Bank and UK's Prudential Corporation Holdings. Singapore's Temasek and PremjiInvest also are shareholders.

ICICI Bank has around 68% stake in the insurer, while Prudential has 26%. Last November, ICICI Bank sold nearly 6% 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.

PremjiInvest holds 4% in the insurance company while Temasek owns 2%. DSP Merrill Lynch and ICICI Securities are global coordinators and book running lead managers to the issue. Others are CLSA, Deutsche, Edelweiss, HSBC, IIFL, JM Financial, SBI Capital Markets and UBS.