Karnataka to demand inquiry into alleged collision by Navy Ship into Udupi fishing boat

New Delhi, Feb 2: Budget 2020 announcement that insurance behemoth LIC will be listed was well received by market participants who said this will be "IPO of the decade" akin to the Saudi Aramco listing.

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Saturday said Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) will be listed as part of the government disinvestment initiative.

A "highlight of the budget is the LIC IPO, which is akin to the Saudi Aramco listing for Indian capital markets, and will be IPO of the decade," Vijay Bhushan, President, Association of National Exchanges Members of India (ANMI) said.

According to Krishna Kumar Karwa, Managing Director, Emkay Global Financial Services, the LIC IPO will be a big positive for corporate governance and transparency and will open up one more avenue for fund raising for the government over the years.

Metropolitan Stock Exchange, Interim CEO, Balu Nair said: "The LIC listing will be eagerly awaited by investors and will provide huge fillip to capital raising through the primary market." The government proposes to sell a part of its holding in LIC through an initial public offer, Sitharaman said while presenting Budget 2020-21.

"The government will sell part of LIC through its listing in the stock market which is also a positive trigger for the market," Amit Gupta, CO-Founder and CEO, TradingBells.

Jaideep Hansraj, MD and CEO of Kotak Securities said listing of LIC would help bridge a gap in the Fiscal Deficit for FY21.

Currently, the government owns the entire 100 per cent stake in LIC.

Saudi Aramco shares were listed in December last year.

Dubai, Feb 11: An Indian national has been diagnosed with the novel coronavirus in the UAE, bringing the total number of confirmed infection cases to eight, the country's health ministry has said.

The death toll in China's coronavirus outbreak has gone up to 1,016 while the confirmed cases of infection have soared to 42,638, Chinese health officials said on Tuesday.

The UAE Ministry of Health and Prevention (MoHAP) said on Monday that the Indian national was infected after he interacted with a recently diagnosed person.

"The Ministry of Health and Prevention announced today the eighth confirmed case of new coronavirus in the UAE, which is an Indian national who had interacted with a recently diagnosed person," it said in a tweet.

On Sunday, the ministry said that the two new patients, a Chinese national and a Filipino, had been diagnosed with the disease and were receiving medical care as per the highest health standards available in the country.

It said that all health facilities will continue to report any new cases suspected to have coronavirus.

Last week, a family of four who arrived from Wuhan for a holiday in Dubai were diagnosed with coronavirus. A fifth patient, who also arrived from the Chinese city, was confirmed to have been infected with 
the virus, but is reportedly in a stable condition.

China and countries around the world are scrambling to contain the spread of coronavirus which fiirst surfaced in Wuhan city in the Central Hubei province of China. Apart from China, two deaths have occurred in Hong Kong and the Philippines.

Besides Germany, Britain and Italy, other European nations with cases of the virus include France, Russia, Belgium, Sweden, Finland and Spain.