HDFC Life sets price range for up to $1.34 billion IPO

MUMBAI (Reuters) - HDFC Standard Life Insurance Co. Ltd's initial public offering could raise as much as 86.95 billion rupees ($1.34 billion) after the Indian insurer set a 275-290 rupees per share price range for the IPO on Thursday.

Companies have raised about $8 billion from IPOs in India so far in what is set to be a record year and HDFC Life's IPO will be the fourth to raise more than a billion dollars in 2017.

However, concerns over high valuations have meant lacklustre debuts for insurance companies that have listed.

HDFC Life's two main shareholders - Housing Development Finance Corp and Standard Life - are selling a combined 299.8 million shares in the IPO, which will be open for subscriptions from Nov.7 to Nov.9.

 

State-run reinsurer General Insurance Corp of India's IPO earlier this month raised $1.7 billion, while the country's top non-life insurer New India Assurance Co Ltd, also state-run, will take subscriptions for its up to $1.5 billion IPO from Nov.1 to Nov. 3.

HDFC Life's rival SBI Life Insurance Co Ltd made its trading debut earlier this month after a $1.3 billion IPO.

Morgan Stanley, HDFC Bank, Credit Suisse, Citic CLSA and Nomura are the global-coordinators and bookrunners for the HDFC Life IPO, with Edelweiss, Haitong Securities, IDFC Bank, IIFL Holdings and UBS as the other bookrunners.

($1 = 64.8250 Indian rupees)

(Reporting by Devidutta Tripathy; editing by Alexander Smith)