LIC books nearly Rs 15,000 crore profit in equities in FY21, 80% of FY20 gains

New Delhi, 16-Oct-2020

Life Insurance Corporation (LIC), the country's biggest insurer, has booked Rs 15,000 crore profit from its equity investments in this fiscal so far and is heading for a bumper year. The Economic Times citing a senior LIC official mentioned in a report that the state-owned insurer, has booked close to Rs 15,000 crore as profits from equities in the current fiscal. This amount is equivalent to 80% of the gains it made from the markets in the previous financial year, when it booked Rs 18,500 crore profits from equities. According to the official, LIC has invested about Rs 50,000 crore in the last six months in Indian equities. �LIC is a contrarian investor. We found opportunities in March when markets fell and then when stocks went up, we booked profits,� the business daily quoted the executive as saying. Worth mentioning here is that the BSE Sensex had fallen 37% between February 19 and March 23 this year while the index recovered 53% between March 24 till date. Firm global cues, inflows from foreign institutional investors fuelled the stock rally. Financial markets calmed after a turbulent period in February-March sparked by the coronavirus outbreak and volatility has ebbed thanks to the large doses of fiscal and monetary policy stimuli in developed economies. The LIC executive said in the last six months (April-September) it has already invested Rs 2.6 lakh crore across equities, government securities, corporate bonds and state development loans. In the remaining part of this fiscal, it plans to invest at least Rs 2 lakh crore. Last fiscal year, it had invested over Rs 4 lakh crore across equity, corporate bonds and G-Secs. The market value of LIC�s holding in Indian companies swelled to Rs 5.34 lakh crore as of June 30 from Rs 4.15 lakh crore on March 31. The data for the September quarter were not fully available as companies are yet to make the disclosures. On an overall basis during the quarter, LIC�s holding went up in 51 listed companies, while it�s holding reduced in 30 companies. Its holding in around 224 companies remained unchanged, the publication mentioned. The companies in which LIC increased stake in the June quarter were Dredging Corp. of India, Havells India, Bata and Tata Steel. Companies in which LIC reduced its stake by more than 1% include GAIL, Power Grid, Tata Consumer, Dr Reddy�s Lab & Britannia Industries.