SBI Life stock makes muted debut, gains 1% over issue price

Mumbai: Shares of SBI Life Insurance Company on Tuesday saw a muted listing on bourses, settling at Rs 708, a premium of just 1.14 percent over the issue price on BSE.

It debuted with 5 percent premium over the issue price of Rs 700 and saw intra-day high of Rs 738 and a low of Rs 702.25 on BSE.

The market capitalisation of the company stood at Rs 70,800 crore at the end of the trading session.

"We hope that the contribution and vigilance of non promoter investors would bring even more or greater discipline in the performance of SBI Life which we believe will be great to take company to next level," State Bank of India Chairman Arundhati Bhattacharya said at the listing ceremony here.

On NSE, the stock listed at Rs 735 and touched an intra- day high of Rs 740 and a low of Rs 701.70. It finally settled for the day at Rs 707.55, up 1.07 percent.

SBI Life Insurance Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer Arijit Basu said: "We intend to continue to explore opportunities to expand our operations in South Asia, including in Nepal and Bangladesh, and have obtained all regulatory approvals for starting operations in Bahrain.

The company intends to expand its protection product portfolio, with a particular emphasis on credit life protection products.

"We will continue to focus on further growing our credit life protection business offering coverage for loans by working more closely with our bancassurance partners and entering into strategic distribution arrangements with other financial services institutions," Basu said.

SBI Life is a joint venture between India's largest lender State Bank of India (SBI) and BNP Paribas Cardif (BNPPC), the insurance holding company of France.

The company's Rs 8,400-crore initial public offer (IPO), from September 20-22, was oversubscribed 3.58 times.

The portion meant for qualified institutional buyers (QIBs) was oversubscribed 12.56 times while that of non- institutional investors received 70 percent subscriptions and retail investors 85 percent.