LIC to invest Rs2.25 trillion in markets this fiscal

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State-owned Life Insurance Corp. of India (LIC), the country’s biggest insurer, expects to invest at least `2.25 trillion in the financial markets in the year to next March, seeking to tap a potential upturn in the economy after the presentation of the national budget on 10 July.

The expected investment by LIC marks an increase of `15,000 crore, or 6.6%, in the money the insurer spent buying securities in the last fiscal year. The figure may be revised higher, said two senior officials at LIC, the single largest investor in India’s financial markets.

Most of the `2.25 trillion of estimated investment by LIC could be allocated to government securities because equity markets have been trading high for several months and the insurer typically is used to selling shares on market highs and buying stocks on lows.

In fiscal 2014, LIC earned `90,123.76 crore in first-year premiums. That makes up three-quarters of the total first-year premium collected by the life insurance industry, in which LIC competes against 23 private-sector firms.

Of about 6,000 listed firms, LIC held stakes in at least 361 at the end of March. Only 957 firms have disclosed their June-end shareholding pattern so far; LIC has a holding in 125 of them.
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