LIC increases its shareholding in this monopoly business; let’s find out why?

Shares of LIC jumped more than 6% today.

Today, LIC informed in the exchange filing that it has increased its stake in IRCTC from 5.00% to 7.27%. LIC bought the shares of IRCTC in an open market transaction. They bought the shares between 16 and 17 December 2022.

IRCTC is the only entity authorised to provide the services of online ticket booking, catering and packaged drinking water by Indian Railways. It is a Central Public Sector Enterprise wherein, the Government of India has a 67.4% stake. IRCTC has been given the status of Mini Ratna in 2008. IRCTC business has four different verticals, Internet ticketing, Catering, Travel and Tourism and Packaged drinking water.

LIC is the largest insurance provider company in India. It has a 68.25% market share in new business premium Income. It is the third-strongest insurance brand globally. It has the largest agency force of more than 13 lakh agents with 52% of agents in the urban and metropolitan areas and 48% in the rural area.

Today, the stock opened at Rs 690.00 with a high and low of Rs 741.50 and Rs 689.40. The stock previously closed at Rs 688.60. The stock closed trading today at Rs 734.55, up by 6.67%.

In the last six months, the shares of the company have given 11.61% returns and on a YTD basis, the stock has given -15.66 returns.

The stock has a 52-week high of Rs 920.00 and a 52-week low of Rs 588.00. The company has a ROCE of 142% and an ROE of 48.2% with a market capitalisation of Rs 4,64,602.71 crore.