New Delhi, Mar 2 (IANS): Shares of SBI Life Insurance Company and HDFC Life Insurance Company rose sharply on reports of a possible delay in the much-awaited initial public offering (IPO) of Life Insurance Corporation of India.

SBI Life shares settled 5.7 per cent higher at Rs 1,120, whereas HDFC Life 7.0 per cent up at Rs 560.

In an interview with Hindu BusinessLine, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said if "global considerations" warrant any delay, she wouldn't mind looking at it again.

LIC had on February 13 filed the Draft Red Herring Prospectus (DRHP) with capital markets regulator SEBI, looking to sell the Centre's 5 per cent equity stake in the company via IPO route.

The Centre aims to offload a total of 316 million equity shares to investors through the public offering of the 6.32 billion outstanding shares, the DRHP document showed.

The Centre wishes to conclude the IPO by the end of FY22, and it would like to cash in on the LIC IPO to meet its revised divestment estimate.

The current fiscal's divestment target was revised to Rs 78,000 crore from the Budget estimates of Rs 1.75 lakh crore.