MUMBAI (NewsRise) -- India's SBI Life Insurance Co. plans to raise as much as 84 billion rupees ($1.30 billion) this month in what could be the largest initial public offering in the south Asian nation in seven years.
The share sale of SBI Life -- a joint venture between the nation's biggest lender State Bank of India and France's BNP Paribas Cardiff - will help propel India's IPO market to a record this fiscal year. A clutch of private and state-owned insurers including HDFC Life and National Insurance Co. are set to tap the stock market later this year. ICICI Lombard, a unit of ICICI Bank, is set to open its 57 billion-rupee IPO for subscription this week.