Listing of Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) on stock exchanges will bring out version 3.0 of the insurance firm, its chairman MR Kumar said. “When we nationalized life insurance in 1956, my view was, that was LIC 1.0. When the market opened up and we were under competition and we did well in a competitive market too, that was LIC 2.0,” Mr Kumar said while answering a question at a virtual press conference ahead of the insurer’s initial public offering (IPO). said. “And now, we are going to see LIC 3.0, a listed organization and a listed, huge, life insurance company. 3.0 would mean we would have another family of shareholders. We need to meet their needs,” he said. Mr Kumar said LIC needs to be ‘agile, agile in these circumstances’. “We are working on several things at once to make this happen,” he said. He said: “Hence, going forward, this will be an exciting story for LIC. All of us at LIC are very excited about the transformation that is taking place and we look forward to delivering outstanding results to our policyholders who have been with us all this time. And our shareholders too.” The government will reduce its stake in LIC from present 5 per cent to 100 per cent. Asked how the interests of minority shareholders will be protected as the government will hold 95% stake in the company after the IPO, Mr. Kumar said, “LIC We have equity in so many companies. Are we going to be ahead in that?” he said. Stating that LIC was looking at global developments amid geopolitical tensions, he said the IPO would hit the market in March as planned and preparations were on for it. That LIC will be a board-led organization and returns to policyholders should not decrease, but in turn, it may increase as LIC will outperform post-IPO.The stake in IDBI Bank is in the interest of LIC’s bank assurance business, he said. Presently, LIs in IDBI Bank the company has a 49.24% stake; Holdings are expected to decrease in the near future. But LIC will not exit its investment in the bank completely, Mr. Kumar asserted.
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