ICICI Lombard raises Rs 1,625 crore from anchor investors ahead of IPO

New Delhi: ICICI Lombard General Insurance on Thursday raised Rs 1,625 crore from anchor investors ahead of its initial share sale opening on Friday.

The leading insurer would allot shares to 64 anchor investors at Rs 661 apiece -- upper end of the IPO price band.

Nomura, Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, Kuwait Investment, Goldman Sachs, Reliance Nippon, DSP BlackRock and Franklin Templeton are among the anchor investors.

The IPO Committee of the company's board on Thursday finalised allocation of 2.458 crore shares to anchor investors. At them price of Rs 661 per scrip, the total proceeds would be to the tune of Rs 1,625 crore, according to a filing to the stock exchanges.

ICICI Lombard General Insurance is a joint venture between ICICI Bank and Canadian NRI Prem Watsa-promoted Fairfax Financial Holdings.

The company's initial public offer (IPO) involves dilution of up to 86,247,187 equity shares by promoters -- ICICI Bank and Fairfax. The initial share-sale offer would close on September 19.

The insurer is looking to raise about Rs 5,700 crore at the higher end of the price band which is fixed between Rs 651-661 per share.

Post-issue, the shareholding of Fairfax would come down to 9.91 per cent from 21.9 per cent now, while the same for ICICI Bank would be reduced to 55.95 from 62.95 per cent.

For ICICI Bank group, this is the second public offer this fiscal. Its life insurance arm ICICI Prudential had raised Rs 6,000 crore through an IPO.

Two state-run general insurers -- General Insurance Corp of India and New India Assurance Company, as also two life insurance firms (SBI Life and HDFC Standard Life) have also lined up IPO plans.