DK MEHROTRA - What bailout? It was all part of the plan

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DK MEHROTRA, Chairman of Life Insurance Corporation 

Source: CNBC TV 18 

DK MEHROTRA, Chairman of Life Insurance Corporation 

What bailout? It was all part of the plan

We do not find anything wrong in the insurance giant's decision to pick up a lion's share in the ONGC share auction. ONGC stake was all part of the "plan". "We had been observing ONGC for quite sometime and it was not the first time we've picked up ONGC. We already had an ONGC holding with us. We have done our diligence, research etc. We knew there is an upside there," he clarified.

Bullish on ONGC because of the company's fundamentals and also because it belongs to the oil & gas sector. "Presently, maybe it's trading at a price below what we have purchased, but still I hope, and as I said we are long-term investors, we do not find anything wrong in our decision. It's wrong to say that we have tried to help out anybody. It's purely our commercial decision and I can assure you none of my customers would be impacted negatively by this," Mehrotra categorically stated.

The insurance company also discovered value in a series of banks, which needed equity infusion from the government. "We found out that the banks were undervalued but they're performing very well. We knew there will be upside in the future. So we went ahead and put our money into these banks," Mehrotra said.