National Insurance Company Limited plans IPO by FY18, waiting for approval from IRDA, post which they will file their Draft Red Herring Prospectus (DRHP) with SEBI for their IPO.
National Insurance Company (NIC), a Government-owned company plans to launch IPO by FY18, says, K Sanath Kumar, Chairman and Managing Director (CMD) of NIC.
"We might be possibly the fifth insurer to tap the market this fiscal. Hopefully, we should be there before March 2018", Kumar told Business Line.
National Insurance Company (NIC) is waiting for an in-principle approval from IRDA. Once NIC receives the nod, NIC will file their Draft Red Herring Prospectus and the merchant bankers would be appointed for the issue. Currently, the Centre holds the entire shareholding in NIC. The Centre will decide on how much of its shareholding it will dilute through the IPO, Kumar added.
So far, NIC has not decided on what kind of stake sale the company is looking for or even the amount which can be raised from IPO. However, the net worth of NIC as on 2016-17 stood at 9,544 crores as against 8,764 crores in 2015-16.
The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs had approved listing of five state-owned general insurance companies in January 2017, including National Insurance Company.
Besides, other private insurance companies like HDFC Standard Life Insurance and ICICI Lombard General Insurance have announced their plans too. In the meantime, SBI Life Insurance launched their IPO on 20th Sept.
