STANDARD Life Aberdeen has raised a further £172 million from the sale of shares in Indian life insurance venture HDFC Life.

The Edinburgh-based investment giant said it had sold shares representing around 1.4 per cent of the total share capital of HDFC Life on stock exchanges in India.

The sale left Standard Life Aberdeen with a near 9% stake in HFDC Life. It said this was worth around £1.2bn.

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On its website, the company says HDFC Life is consistently ranked among the top three private life insurers in India.

It notes: “We have realised significant value from this investment through the sale of part of our stake over the last three years.”

HDFC Life floated on the Bombay Stock Exchange in 2017.

In May Standard Life Aberdeen said its financial position had been boosted by net cash proceeds of £237m from the sale of shares in HDFC Life. In November 2017 it raised around £370m by reducing its stake in the venture.

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Standard Life Aberdeen said yesterday that its remaining 8.89% shareholding in HDFC Life was locked in until March 31. HDFC Life developed out of a venture formed by Standard Life and India’s Housing Development Finance Corporation in 2000.

Standard Life merged with Aberdeen Asset Management in 2017.