Easier said than done: Complexity of listing LIC, India's top life insurer

Variegated ownership, a size more than Budget 2020-21, a difficult-to-determine valuation and a slew of other factors make the LIC sale a herculean task

The government announced in  the annual Budget for 2020-21, that it would sell a part of the sexagenarian state-owned life insurance company, the Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) of India an other financial-sector entities, as a part of its disinvestment programmme. It expects to earn a substantial revenue of Rs 90,000 crore, or 5.5 per cent of its receipts, from the sale of these financial institutions. This is a tad lower than what it expects to collect from the two largest state-owned petroleum companies (one has already been sold) put together. 

But selling a part of a company that is wholly-owned