State Bank of India‘s central committee has approved the initial public offering registration of its life insurance arm, known as SBI Life. With this, the bank will dilute its equity in the life insurance arm. The bank has already got the required approvals from the authorities and is set to list its shares on the stock exchanges. There is, however, no official announcement about the listing date of SBI Life Shares.
In an exchange filing, SBI confirmed that the board has cleared the IPO in a meeting held on Monday. With this, SBI life will become the second insurance company in the country to go public. The first company was ICICI Prudential.
SBI’s life insurance arm is valued at ₹46,000 crores. It was initiated as a joint venture between State Bank of India and BNP Paribas Cardiff. SBI holds 70.1% stakes whereas BNP Paribas holds around 26 percent shares. Last year, BNP Paribas had sold its shares to KKR and Temasek Holdings. Both the companies acquired 1.95% of SBI life at ₹460 per share.
ICICI Prudential is currently the highest valued insurance company the country. The IPO, which took place last year to raise ₹6.57 crores, valued the company at ₹48,000 crores.
SBI Life has been one of the most profitable insurance providers in the country. Its profit in FY17 grew 10.9% to 954.65 crores as compared to ₹861.03 crores in FY16.