Syndicate Bank plans to venture into the life insurance space and has shortlisted Aviva Life Insurance, Birla Sun Life Insurance, and Reliance Life Insurance for this purpose. Apart from these 3 domestic insurance companies, the bank has also shortlisted Avantha Ergo which is a foreign insurer.
“The process is on. We are evaluating both brownfield and greenfield options. What we want is an efficient partnership. We don’t want to use our capital to acquire a majority stake,” said a senior Syndicate Bank official.
He added that they are looking to buy a minority stake at a discount.
Birla Sun Life Insurance is a joint venture between the Aditya Birla Group and Sun Life Financial Inc of Canada and was established in India in the year 2000.
Aviva Life Insurance is a joint venture between one of the country’s oldest and largest groups, Dabur, and the UK’s largest insurance group Aviva plc. The company was registered in 2002.
Reliance Life Insurance recently partnered with Japan’s largest insurer Nippon Life resulting in the largest FDI deal in insurance pegged at Rs 3,062 crore.