HDFC Life's $1.3 billion Indian IPO nearly five times subscribed

Reuters  |  MUMBAI 

(Reuters) - Life Co. Ltd's initial public offering was subscribed 4.9 times on the last day of the sale on Thursday, in what was the fourth billion dollar-plus in this year.

The insurer's two main shareholders aim to raise 86.95 billion rupees ($1.3 bln) from the offering, and institutional investors bid for 16.6 times the number of shares on offer for that segment, while the retail portion was subscribed 91 percent, data as of 1330 GMT showed.

has seen a record year for IPOs with more than $11 billion of initial share sales, including Life's, so far. But high valuations, especially for some of the recent IPOs, have weighed on investor sentiment.

Life's rival SBI Life Co Ltd, which made its trading debut last month after a $1.3 billion offering, is trading 6 percent below its issue price.

State-run reinsurer General Corp of India, which also listed last month after a $1.7 billion IPO, has lost more than 13 percent from the issue price. Top non-life insurer New Assurance Co Ltd, also state-run, is set to start trading on Monday after its $1.5 billion last week was subscribed 1.2 times.

Life's two main shareholders - Housing Development Finance Corp and Life - were selling a combined 299.8 million shares in the

Morgan Stanley, Bank, Credit Suisse, Citic CLSA and Nomura were the global coordinators and bookrunners for the Edelweiss, Haitong Securities, IDFC Bank, IIFL Holdings and UBS were the other bookrunners.($1 = 64.9650 Indian rupees)

(Reporting by Devidutta Tripathy and Sankalp Phartiyal; Editing by Susan Fenton)

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First Published: Thu, November 09 2017. 21:58 IST