Canara HSBC Life Insurance Company is a joint venture promoted by state-owned Canara Bank, which owns a 51 per cent stake, and HSBC Group’s HSBC Insurance (Asia Pacific) Holdings, which holds 26 per cent. Punjab National Bank holds the rest of stakes and will exit through IPO
New Delhi: Bancassurance player Canara HSBC Life Insurance Company has filed for an initial public offering, draft papers showed on Tuesday, with its existing shareholders looking to sell their stake.
The life insurer is a joint venture promoted by state-owned Canara Bank, which owns a 51 per cent stake, HSBC Group’s HSBC Insurance (Asia Pacific) Holdings, which holds 26 per cent and Punjab National Bank, with 23 per cent.
Set up in 2007, the insurance joint venture manages more than ₹40,000 crore ($4.7 billion) in assets, said it will not issue fresh shares.
The insurer hasn’t detailed the size or timing of the IPO.
The company’s IPO is a complete offer-for-sale (OFS) of 23.75 crore equity shares by promoters and an investor, according to the draft red herring prospectus (DRHP) filed on Monday.
Under the OFS, Canara Bank will sell 13.77 crore equity shares, HSBC Insurance (Asia-Pacific) Holdings Ltd will offload 47.5 lakh shares and Punjab National Bank plans to divest 9.5 crore equity shares.
Since it is an OFS, the company will not receive any proceeds from the public issue.
PNB will exit the joint venture by selling up to 95 million shares.
PNB has another life insurance joint venture(JV) with US based Metlife, PNB Metlife Life Insurance and insurance regulations don’t allow one company having two insurance JVs.
SBI Capital Markets Ltd, BNP Paribas, HSBC Securities & Capital Markets (India) Private Ltd, JM Financial Ltd and Motilal Oswal Investment Advisors Ltd are the book-running lead managers to the issue.
In December 2024, Canara Bank announced that it got Reserve Bank’s approval for a proposal to divest the bank’s stake in life insurance and mutual fund ventures.
The listing comes at a time when rising global market volatility, driven by flip-flops by the US on tariffs, is forcing companies to recalibrate IPO ambitions to avoid weak demand or failed listings.
India was the world’s second-largest market by IPO proceeds in 2024. However, listings are down nearly 15 per cent this year, data compiled by LSEG showed.
Canara HSBC Life Insurance Company reported a profit after tax of ₹113 crore in fiscal year ended March 2024, 24.3 per cent higher than the year earlier, its draft prospectus showed. Revenue, however, was marginally lower by 1 per cent over the same period. It is yet to report results for fiscal 2025.
This is the second IPO by a Canara Bank-backed company in recent times, following last week’s filing by Canara Robeco Asset Management Company.
The other listed life insurers are, Life Insurance Corporation , HDFC Life, SBI Life, ICICI Pru Life.