LIC to take it slow in equity investments after bumper buy this year

STOCK MARKET - State-owned Life Insurance Corp of India (LIC) will likely slow stock purchases for the rest of the fiscal year after nearly doubling its equity market investments in the first half from a year earlier.

LIC, with assets of Rs 2,726,000 crore ($423.3 billion) as of end-September, had a target of investing Rs 50,000 crore in stocks through the year which ends in March.

During the first six months of that period, LIC’s stock market investments more than doubled from a year earlier to Rs 39,224 crore. As of end-November it had bought equities worth about Rs 44,000 crore, top executives said.

They added they would look at opportunities to take some profit off the table.

Powered by strong fund inflows, Indian markets have hit a string of record highs this year, with the main market index gaining nearly 24 percent year-to-date.

“We will sell wherever we have opportunity,” V.K. Sharma, LIC’s chairman, told reporters. “We are contrarians and market is at peak.”

The surge in LIC’s equity investments to date has been partly driven by the insurer subscribing to some of the stakes being sold by the Indian government in a clutch of companies as part of its asset sales programme.