MUMBAI: State-owned Life Insurance Corporation of India bought a majority of shares in a five per cent stake sale worth $730 million by power utility NTPC Ltd. Although LIC ended up buying 59 per cent — or 243.15 million of the 412.27 million shares on offer — overall institutional demand, including that from foreign investors, was strong with bids worth two-and-a-half times the shares on offer, according to a Reuters review of exchange filings. But retail investors ended up buying only 44 per cent of the shares allotted to them. The sale of NTPC shares was part of India’s  asset sales programme.