LIC clocks Rs 11,000 crore profit through equity investments in FY16

Mumbai: Life insurance giant LIC has made a profit of Rs 11,000 crore through its equity investments in the recently concluded 2015-16, a senior official said Thursday.

"We saw some profit booking opportunities during the fiscal and have made a profit of Rs 11,000 crore through our equity investments in the recently concluded FY16," its executive director for investment operations, Pravin Kutumbe told reporters on the sidelines of an event here.

He said the largest domestic investor pumped-in Rs 2.70 lakh crore across equity and debt markets in the fiscal, of which Rs 65,000 crore was in the equity segment.

The depressed markets towards the latter part of the year led to the corporation exceeding on its equity investments target of Rs 60,000 crore announced earlier, he said.

He said the banking sector, where a thorough clean-up is underway, presents value buying opportunities at present.

The executive director, however, declined to give a sense of how the Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) of India looks at the broader market.

Even in the difficult times, there are stocks which are at their 52-week high and the LIC makes money by exiting in such investments, he said.

Comparable figures for the state-run company's performance last fiscal were, however, not immediately available.

Kutumbe said that having announced a target of investing up to Rs 1.5 lakh crore to help the Railways, LIC has loaned Rs 7,000 crore to it in 2015-16 and scale it up as Railways comes up with its needs.

The money has been loaned at a coupon of 0.30 per cent over the benchmark government securities for the year, he said.

There was a 10.82 per cent correction in the 30-share benchmark of the BSE during the fiscal. It opened the fiscal at 28,260 points and closed at 25,341 points on March 31, 2016, making it a not-so-happy year due to the volatilities.

It touched a high of 29,094 points on April 15 last year and passed through choppy waters towards the latter part of the fiscal, which led to it registering a year's low of 22,494 points on February 29.