Mumbai, April 7: In a bid to ensure transparency and easy access to the capital market, insurance regulator IRDAI has asked insurance companies to go for listing, Chairman Debasis Panda said on Thursday.
Speaking to media persons here, Panda, who is on a two-day visit to Mumbai to meet various stakeholders, said that listing will allow insurance companies to raise funds in the capital market.
“We are asking the insurance companies to go for listing so that they can have access to the capital market. Today with the LIC listing, close to 60 per cent of the market gets listed. That brings in a lot of transparency, disclosures and an access to the market to raise their capital”, the IRDAI chief said.
In February this year, the government filed the draft red herring prospectus (DRHP) for the public listing of insurance behemoth Life Insurance Corporation (LIC). The government hopes to raise over Rs 60,000 crore from the IPO, as it plans to sell over 31.6 crore shares or its five per cent stake in the company. Panda, who took charge last month, also noted that the authority is re-looking at the current investment norms to bring in more relaxations, to ensure that the bottlenecks in getting more investments are removed. “This (listing) will help them grow and our ultimate target of deepening insurance penetration will happen. That is something we are trying to nudge them and we will facilitate them in doing that,” he said, adding that it has sought a road map from the insurance companies on their plans to go for listing.
