Carlyle invests $653m in India’s SBI Life

According to market data, Carlyle bought 90 million shares from BNP Paribas at INR515 each, a discount to the February 28 closing price of INR583. SBI Life opened on March 1 at INR556.50, but quickly climbed to INR600 and ended up closing at INR605.50.

Following the transaction BNP Paribas, which launched SBI Life in 2001 alongside the State Bank of India (SBI), continues to hold a 12.8% stake. SBI is the majority shareholder with 62.1%.

SBI Life claims to be one of India’s leading private life insurance providers, with over 108,000 agents as of March 2018 and a presence in every state and union territory but one. The company raised INR84 billion in its 2017 IPO, selling shares held by SBI and BNP Paribas. Revenue for the year ended March 2018 came to INR12.9 billion, up from INR10.6 billion the year before. Net profit grew from INR9.5 billion to INR11.5 billion over the same period.

“The life insurance industry in India has strong growth potential thanks to favorable demographics and an increasing focus on financial savings,” said Sunil Kaul, a managing director on Carlyle’s Asia buyout team, in a statement. “SBI Life, led by a strong management team, is helping deliver this promise in the life insurance space and is well-positioned to further benefit from industry trends.”

Carlyle is currently investing its fifth Asia buyout fund, which closed at $6.55 billion last year. The vehicle targets buyouts and strategic investments across the Asia ex-Japan region in a range of sectors, including consumer and retail, financial services, healthcare, industrials, and technology, media and telecom.

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• Topics
• South Asia
• Financials
• PIPEs
• India
• insurance
• The Carlyle Group