News: LIC to unlock value of its huge real estate assets-30-04-2022
The MD of the insurance behemoth, Siddhartha Mohanty, who was in the city for the IPO roadshow of LIC, said that the state-run insurer is gradually taking back its properties. LIC has real estate assets in Mumbai, Kolkata and other metro cities.
KOLKATA: Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) will aggressively pursue unplugging of the value of its huge real estate assets. The MD of the insurance behemoth, Siddhartha Mohanty, who was in the city for the IPO roadshow of LIC, said that the state-run insurer is gradually taking back its properties. LIC has real estate assets in Mumbai, Kolkata and other metro cities.
The Centre is diluting 3.5% stake in LIC for Rs 21,000 crore, giving the insurance giant a valuation of close to Rs 5.5 lakh crore for now. The price dilution for retail investors is Rs 904 while for policy holders, it will be Rs 889 and for QIBs (qualified institutional buyers) Rs 949. LIC has a reserve of over Rs 30 lakh crore and its real estate is valued at a price higher than that.
When asked about the valuation of the LIC IPO, Mohanty said that “insurance company valuation is a bit different and one has to see the embedded valuation”. However, he admitted that as far as real estate is concerned, over 100 litigations are on across various courts in the country.
Mohanty also pointed out that in guaranteed products, LIC has to make provisioning. “In case of surplus, it goes to shareholders. For deficit, we have to make up,” he added.
The largest life insurer of India had a market share of 61.6% in terms of premiums, 61.4% in new business premium (or NBP), 71.8% with respect to number of individual policies issued, 88.8% as per group policies issued for the nine months that ended December 31, 2021. LIC has a 13.3-lakh-strong agent base, which is the highest among all insurance companies.
However, LIC is now planning to give thrust on bancassurance. Though the share of bancassurance is now at 3.6%, we are hoping to make it over 6%. “This year, we are giving special focus on it,” an official added.
