New India Assurance shares fall over 9% in debut trade

Mumbai/New Delhi: Shares of New India Assurance Company made a sluggish debut at bourses on Monday and ended with a sharp loss of more than 9 percent against the issue price of Rs 800.

The stock listed at Rs 748.90, down 6.38 percent, compared to the issue price on the BSE. During the day, it tumbled 10.28 percent to Rs 717.75. It finally ended at Rs 725.05, down 9.36 percent.

On NSE, shares of the company settled at Rs 727.10, a loss of 9.11 percent.

In terms of equity volume, 4.30 lakh shares of the company were traded on BSE and over 25 lakh shares changed hands on NSE during the day.

The company's market valuation stood at Rs 59,744.12 crore.

At the listing ceremony in Mumbai, New India Assurance chairman-cum-Managing Director G Srinivasan said, "Companies like us have large technical reserves, what is known as policy holders liabilities, outstanding claims and reserve for an expired risk. We have technical reserve of Rs 28,000 crore."

"We have taken a lot of steps to rationalise the prices and also to manage claims more efficiently. So there is going to be a lot of improvement in the claims ratio and the combined ratio as well as the adjusted combined ratio," Srinivasan said.

On Aadhaar he said, "It's mandatory, so there is a lot of operational issues. We all are trying to figure out how to make it effective. It may take 2-3 months to include Aadhaar in the KYC."

The Rs 9,600-crore IPO was subscribed 1.19 times during November 1-3.

The portion set aside for qualified institutional buyers (QIBs) was subscribed 2.34 times, non-institutional investors 12 percent and retail investors 11 percent, according to data available with the NSE.

The price band for the offer was set at Rs 770-800 per share.

On crop insurance Srinivasan said, "Last year our exposure to crop was a little lower as we were allowed to enter the market at a later point of time. So we did 5 percent and this year, we will play a much active role in the coming years as the market leader. We expect to reach 20-25 percent in crop insurance in the next financial year."

Kotak Mahindra Capital Company, Axis Capital, Nomura Financial Advisory and Securities (India) Private, IDFC Bank and YES Securities were the book running lead managers to the offer.

New India Assurance has assets of over Rs 69,000 crore and has been growing at a CAGR of over 15 percent for the last five years.