While New York Life and ING have exited Indian insurance business, Manulife, a Canada based insurance company is looking into venturing into the Indian Insurance business. It is in advance stages of discussion with Exide to buy 26% of the stake in the company, which is the maximum permissible allowable limit.
While Mr. Mukul Gupta, CEO – Manulife declined to comment on the updates, reliable sources estimate the deal to be around Rs. 1,100 crores, the value during which ING splited up the partnership with Exide.
If the deal breaks through then this will be the first major investment in an insurance company after a time lag of 3 months. In addition to this, market players are waiting for increase in Foreign Direct Investment limit to 49% in insurance business, which will be placed before the parliament during the monsoon session.
Exide Life Insurance which was already holding 50% of share capital has purchased additional 50% of capital, of which 26% was purchased from ING, 16.32% from Mr. Hemendra Kothari Group and balance 7.68% from Enam Group.
