LIC shares soar 74% in 1 year, leading returns among top 10 firms by market cap

Shares of Life Insurance Corp have delivered the highest returns among the top 10 companies by market capitalisation in the last one year period. The insurer, which is the only non-Sensex stock in this list, gained about 74% during the reporting period.

LIC comfortably beat Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) as the latter rallied only just 10% in the last one year.

Bharti Airtel is close second to LIC with a gain of 68.2% in the same period, while the country’s largest public sector lender State Bank of India (SBI) gained 47.64%, according to the stock exchange data.

In the last one year, ICICI Bank, TCS and Infosys have gained 28.19%, 24.76% and 22.61% respectively. FMCG major Hindustan Unilever Ltd (HUL) recorded a muted performance with a return of just 1.99%.

LIC is a market leader in the overall Indian life insurance business with an overall market share of 58.87% in the first year premium income, as of March 2024.The state-owned insurer is planning to acquire one of the standalone health insurance companies in India to capture the growing market.The company’s assets under management (AUM) stand currently at Rs 51.21 lakh crore at the end of March quarter.”We intend to focus our strategic interventions to maximize our market share across categories. At the same time, our sharp focus on various parameters which create superior value for all stakeholders shall continue, as demonstrated,” Mohanty had said earlier.

In the recent fourth quarter, LIC reported a net profit of Rs 13,782 crore, which was up by 4.5% year-on-year. The total premium income for FY24 stood at Rs 4.75 lakh crore and the total individual business premium for the same period increased to Rs 3.03 lakh crore.

The Value of New Business (VNB) registered a growth of 5% year-on-year to Rs 9,583 crore for the year ended March 2024 and the net VNB margin increased 60 bps to 16.80.