After opening the day in green, share markets in India witnessed choppy trades and are presently trading marginally above the dotted line. Sectoral indices are trading on a mixed note, with stocks in the FMCG sector and the metals sector witnessing maximum buying interest. Stocks in the banking sector and the PSU sector are trading in the red.

The BSE Sensex is trading up by 70 points (up 0.2%) and the NSE Nifty is trading up 30 points (up 0.3%). Meanwhile, the BSE Mid Cap index is trading higher by 0.3%, while the BSE Small Cap index is trading up by 0.6%. The rupee is trading at 65.07 to the US$.

In news from stocks in the IPO space. The initial public offer (IPO) of state-owned reinsurer, General Insurance Corporation of India (GIC Re) is attracting a lot of attention.

According to an article in Livemint, Life Insurance Corp. of India (LIC) has put in a major bid for shares of GIC Re’s ongoing IPO.

The GIC IPO is looking to raise Rs 113.7 billion at the upper end of the price band of Rs 855-912 per share. The share sale values the insurance firm at Rs 800 billion.

According to the article, LIC has bid for a substantial portion in the institutional portion of the book as a result of which the institutional portion was already oversubscribed and the overall IPO too was substantially subscribed on the first day itself.

As of yesterday’s close, the portion of shares reserved for institutional investors in the GIC Re IPO was subscribed 1.55 times, while the overall IPO was subscribed 80%.

GIC Re’s share sale is the second largest IPO to hit the Indian primary market since state-owned Coal India Ltd’s Rs152 billion initial share sale in 2010, which remains the largest public offering till date by an Indian entity.

Notably, the stake sale will see a dilution of about 14.2% of the government’s stake, netting it around Rs 98 billion on the upper end of the price band.