HDFC To Offload 9.6% Stake Through Life Insurance Arm’s IPO
HDFC and Standard Life had planned to sell up to 20 percent stake in HDFC Life through the IPO.
HDFC Ltd. will offload 9.57 percent stake in its subsidiary HDFC Standard Life Insurance Company, through an initial public offering.
The mortgage lender will sell 19.1 crore shares via an offer for sale, it said in a stock exchange filing on Friday. This will reduce HDFC's stake in the life insurance unit to around 51 percent. Standard Life Plc, the joint venture partner of HDFC in HDFC Standard Life, will sell 10.86 crore shares.
The size of the offer, price and other details of the IPO will be disclosed in due course, the exchange filing added.
The board of HDFC Life had decided to go ahead with an IPO after its proposed merger with Max Life Insurance ran into regulatory hurdles. The insurer had said on July 17 that the IPO will be in the form of an offer for sale of up to 20 percent of the company’s paid up and issued equity capital by promoters HDFC Ltd. and Standard Life Plc,
The merger with Max India has been delayed at least for now as both companies failed to arrive at a structure that would satisfy the regulator and shareholders, Gerry Grimstone, chairman of Standard Life Plc had told BloombergQuint.
It is now up to the shareholders of Max Life to decide on the future course of the deal, Grimstone had added.