Canara HSBC Life Insurance Company’s $283 million initial public offering (IPO) was fully subscribed on the third day of bidding on Tuesday, driven by robust interest from institutional buyers.
The insurer, a joint venture between India’s Canara Bank CNBK.NS and HSBC Insurance (Asia-Pacific) Holdings, received bids worth 18.97 billion rupees ($213.7 million) for 178.9 million shares as of 1:30 p.m. IST, above the 166.7 million shares on offer in the 100-106 rupees band, per exchange data.
This excludes the 7.5 billion rupees raised through anchor investors, including Societe Generale, ICICI Prudential Asset Management and HDFC Mutual Fund last week.
The IPO will value Canara HSBC Life Insurance at up to 100.7 billion rupees ($1.14 billion) at the top of the price range, compared with larger peers HDFC Life‘s market value of 1.7 trillion rupees and SBI Life‘s 1.8 trillion rupees, per Reuters calculations.
The demand was tepid in the first two days until qualified institutional buyers showed up on the final day, bidding nearly three-times their quota. Overall, 47.2 million shares were set aside for such investors.
Retail demand remain subdued, with the portion subscribed just 0.35 times.
Canara HSBC Life‘s offering was only an offer for sale of up to 237.5 million shares. The company will not receive any proceeds from the IPO.
Selling shareholders Canara Bank, HSBC Insurance (Asia-Pacific) and Punjab National Bank are selling 137.8 million shares, 4.8 million shares and 95 million shares, respectively.
India is seeing a flurry of IPO activity, with non-bank lender Tata Capital TATC.NS and consumer appliance maker LG Electronics India LGEL.NS debuting this week.
Last week, LG Electronics India’s $1.3 billion IPO garnered bids worth nearly $50 billion, becoming India’s most subscribed billion-dollar IPO in nearly 20 years.
Overall, the primary market fundraise in 2025 will likely surpass last year’s $20.5 billion record.
An IPO of another Canara Bank-backed company, Canara Robeco Asset Management, was fully subscribed on the final day of the bidding, driven by institutional investors. The listing will likely be on October 16.
Reuters
