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Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) has filed draft red herring prospectus (DRHP) with Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) for an initial public offer (IPO). The IPO, which is likely to hit the capital market in March, is entirely an Offer for Sale (OFS) through which the government would dilute 5 per cent of its stake by selling 31.63 crore shares. The government is expecting to garner up to Rs 63,000 crore (about $8 billion) from the IPO.

LIC's listing is crucial for the government to meet the lowered revenue estimates of Rs 78,000 crore for the current financial year. The government had an initial target of Rs 1.75 lakh crore from the disinvestment proceeds. Till now, the Centre has raised around Rs 12,000 crore from the privatisation of Air India and stake sale in other PSUs. The government owns a 100 per cent stake (or 6,324,997,701 shares) in LIC. Once listed, it is likely to become the country's biggest company by market capitalisation.

The objects of the offer are to achieve the benefits of listing the equity shares on the stock exchanges; and carry out the OFS of up to 3,16,249,885 equity shares by the selling shareholder. As many as 10 merchant bankers, including Kotak Mahindra Capital, Goldman Sachs (India) Securities, Citigroup Global Markets India and Nomura Financial Advisory and Securities (India), are managing manage public issue.

Life Insurance Corporation, popularly known as LIC is Indian state-owned insurance group and investment company.