ICICI Prudential Life Insurance – the first life insurer to go for an initial public offer – said the public shareholding will be 19 per cent after the issue closes and will be raised to 25 per cent over the next three years, to comply with listing norms.
Shareholding normsAccording to the minimum public shareholding norms laid down by the Securities and Exchange Board of India, promoters of a listed company have to bring down their holding to 75 per cent within three years of listing. For public sector companies, however, the promoter holding cap has been fixed at 90 per cent instead of 75 per cent.
ICICI Bank, the promoter, will dilute 12.63 per cent stake during the offer. Last year, the lender sold 6 per cent stake in its life insurance venture to Premji Invest and a company owned by Temasek Holdings of Singapore, valuing the company at Rs.32,500 crore. Stakes owned by both these entities are considered as public shareholding.
Chanda Kochhar, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of ICICI Bank said the lender will continue to off-load stake in its subsidiaries.
The life insurer’s share sale will open on September 19 and close on September 21. The price band is fixed between Rs.300 and Rs.334 per share.
At the lower price band of Rs.300, the company will garner funds of a little over Rs.5,400 crore from the IPO, while at the upper price band the amount comes to the tune of over Rs.6,000 crore.
