ICICI Prudential Life plans to consider $892mn Indian IPO

Mumbai / Bloomberg

ICICI Prudential Life Insurance Co. has picked arrangers for an initial public offering of as much as 60 billion rupees ($892 million), people familiar with the matter said, in what could be India’s biggest first-time share sale in six years.
The country’s largest private-sector life insurer selected Bank of America Corp. and ICICI Securities Ltd. to lead an offering scheduled for this year, according to the people, who asked not to be identified because the information is private.
ICICI Prudential Life Insurance is seeking a listing at the same time as Indian rival HDFC Standard Life Insurance Co., a joint venture between Housing Development Finance Corp. and Standard Life Plc, is preparing an offering. The deals are slated to be the first listings from the country’s $50 billion life-insurance
industry.
Citic CLSA Capital Markets Ltd., UBS Group AG, Deutsche Bank AG, JM Financial Ltd., IIFL Holdings Ltd. and Edelweiss Financial Services Ltd. are also working on the share sale for the insurer, which is controlled by ICICI Bank Ltd., the people said.
Stake Sale
ICICI Bank plans to sell part of its stake in the IPO, while Prudential Plc, which has a 26 percent holding, has not yet made a decision on the sale, the people said. A Mumbai-based spokesman for the insurer didn’t immediately respond to a phone call and an e-mail seeking comment.
The Indian parliament passed a bill last year allowing foreigners to own as much as 49 percent in the nation’s insurers, up from 26 percent. ICICI Bank, the country’s biggest private-sector lender, agreed in November to cut its stake in the Prudential joint venture in a deal valuing the insurer at 325 billion rupees.
The insurer is now looking at a value of around 400 billion rupees, the people said. The company aims to file a prospectus with the capital markets regulator by the end of the month, they said.
Board Approval
PremjiInvest, a fund set up by Indian outsourcing billionaire AzimPremji, and Singapore state investment companyTemasek Holdings Pte bought shares in the insurer, while ICICI Bank reduced its holding to 68 percent, according to an exchange filing.
The bank’s board approved a sale of part of the life insurance unit through an initial public offering, a April 29 exchange filing showed. ChandaKochhar, the bank’s chief executive officer, said an IPO filing is intended by the end of the first quarter next year.
Citigroup Inc., JPMorgan Chase & Co., Morgan Stanley and Kotak Mahindra Bank Ltd. are among banks HDFC Standard Life picked for its IPO of as much as $400 million, people with knowledge of the matter said last month.