LIC to pump in Rs 175K cr; invest Rs 50K cr in equities

The country's largest insurer, Life Insurance Corporation (LIC), today said it would invest Rs 1,75,000 crore, including Rs 50,000 crore in the equity market, during the current fiscal.

"We are planning to invest a total of Rs 1,75,000 crore against Rs 1,62,000 crore last year," LIC Managing Director Thomas Mathew T told reporters on the sideline of LIC roundtable here.

Of the total, Rs 50,000 would be invested in equities and similar amount would go towards the corporate debt, he said.

The largest player with a market share of about 61 per cent in the life insurance sector has pumped in Rs 8,000 crore in equity markets so far in this fiscal.

On the debt side, he said, the investment would was in the the range of Rs 6,000 to Rs 7,000 crore in the past two and a half months of the fiscal.

The company had invested Rs 40,800 crore in equities and Rs 40,000 crore in debt instruments in 2008-09.

The insurer plans to invest about Rs 65,000 crore into government securities, Mathew said, adding that remaining Rs 10,000 crore would go towards term loans, mutual funds, venture capital etc.