Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC), the government-owned insurance giant, and one of India's largest institutional investors increased its share in chemical major Deepak Nitrite, according to an exchange filing.

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LIC has increased its stake to 3.37 percent, holding 46,01,327 shares. LIC previously owned 1.68 percent of Deepak Nitrite at the end of the third quarter.

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Deepak Nitrite is an Indian chemical manufacturing firm with facilities in Gujarat's Nandesari and Dahej, Maharashtra's Roha and Taloja, and Telangana's Hyderabad.

LIC has recently lowered its stock market investments. For the quarter ended September 2021, the insurer's stake in publicly-traded companies was at its lowest level in the previous 50 quarters.

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Deepak Nitrite shares were trading 2.51 percent higher at 2,596.90 on the NSE on January 10. The company's stock has surged by 152.59 percent in the last year and 33.04 percent in the last six months.

Given that proposed sales of firms such as oil giant Bharat Petroleum are unlikely to begin during the current fiscal, the government is heavily relying on LIC's IPO to come close to the Rs 1.75-lakh-crore disinvestment target for the current fiscal year.

While the public offer is being seen with scepticism, the government is expecting it to happen before March.

According to Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, the government aims to go ahead with the LIC mega public offering during the current fiscal year.

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LIC plans to get listed on domestic exchanges by March next year in a $12-billion initial public offering, which is expected to be the country's largest.

Deepak Nitrite's offerings include basic chemicals, performance products and phenolics and fine and speciality chemicals.

The basic chemicals domain produces chemicals such as sodium nitrite, sodium nitrate, fuel additives, nitro toluidines and nitrosyl sulphuric acid.

The company has continued to benefit from surging phenol derivative prices via its subsidiary Deepak Phenolics, which is a renowned manufacturer of phenol, acetone, and isopropyl alcohol.

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(Edited by : Shoma Bhattacharjee)

First Published:Jan 10, 2022 7:21 PM IST