Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC), the country’s largest insurer has put almost Rs 60,000 crore in disinvestment opportunities offered by the government so far this fiscal. A senior LIC official said the company has booked Rs 20,000 crore as profit from the equity market.
“Compared to last year, when we had booked around Rs 19,000 crore as profit from the equity market. This year, driven by the buoyancy in the markets, we have crossed Rs 20,000 crore,” he said.
Upto the end of the third quarter, LIC had invested Rs 3 lakh crore in equity and debt. Of this, Rs 2 lakh crore was invested in government securities, while about Rs 40,000 crore was invested in equity markets. The rest went into disinvestment offers by the government.
LIC is seen to be a contrarian player in the equity market, meaning they buy when the market is down and sell when the market rallies. The insurer is said to have set an internal target of Rs 50,000 crore for investing in the equity market.
In November 2017, LIC chairman VK Sharma had said LIC has an appetite to invest another Rs 10,000 to Rs 20,000 crore in government bonds this financial year. He had also added they will not be aggressive in the equity investments since they are a contrarian player in the market.
The life insurer has set a target of Rs 38,000 crore as first premium income for FY18. In FY17, LIC had invested Rs 47,000 crore in the equity market. Its total assets saw a growth by 14 percent to Rs 27.25 lakh crore for the six months ended September 30, 2017 compared to same period last year.
Data from the Life Insurance Council showed that LIC had collected Rs 99783.33 crore of first year premium for the April 1 to December 31, 2017 period, showing a growth of 19.5 percent growth over same period last fiscal.