By Nupur Anand

MUMBAI (Reuters – India’s largest insurer, Life Insurance Corporation, has gotten off on a great start. According to an exchange filing, 949 rupees per share was paid for the 59.3m shares reserved for anchor investors.

Indian officials have stated that they expect to raise as much as $2.74 trillion from the sale of a 3.5% stake at LIC. This is only a third increase on their original goal.

High-profile institutional investors who are allocated shares prior to the opening of retail subscriptions for investors. They must also commit to keeping their shares for a specified period following listing.

LIC will open its offering to other investors May 4, and close May 9. With 56 billion rupees ($732 million), of shares reserved for anchor investors, the indicative price range was set at 902-949 Rupees per share.

According to filings, Norges Bank Investment Management (Norwegian wealth fund) and Government of Singapore were among those who subscribed to the anchor books.

Anchor investors have included domestic mutual funds such as SBI, ICICI, HDFC, and Kotak, in addition to other global fund houses.

According to two banks sources, over 20 people expressed interest to subscribe to the anchor books.

Foreign institutional investors expressed concerns over LIC’s IPO. But, the chairman of LIC stated last week that global pension funds have shown “good interests.”

($1 equals 76.5150 Indian rupees).

($1 equals 76.4640 Indian rupees).