Carlyle makes partial exit from India's SBI Life

The private equity firm offloaded 30 million shares for INR938.83 apiece, according to stock exchange data. The stock has performed strongly since March, gaining more than 70%. This far outstripped the 11.7% increase in the BSE Sensex Index over the same period. However, SBI Life dropped 6.2% on November 19 in response to Carlyle’s sale and closed at INR938.65 the following day.

Carlyle paid INR46.4 billion for a 9% stake in the company in early March. It acquired 90 million shares from BNP Paribas at INR515. Following the transaction, BNP Paribas, which launched SBI Life in 2001 alongside the State Bank of India (SBI), retained a 12.8% interest. SBI is the majority shareholder with 62.1%. The company listed in 2017, raising INR84 billion in its IPO.

SBI Life claims to be one of India’s leading private life insurance providers, with nearly 15,000 employees and a network of over 123,000 individual distribution agents. Gross written premiums totaled INR329.9 billion as of March 2019, up from INR253.5 billion the previous year, while total assets exceeded INR1.4 trillion. Net income came to INR388.8 billion, up from INR293.1 billion in 2018.

KKR and Temasek Holdings remain investors in SBI Life, having committed a combined INR18 billion for a 3.9% stake in 2016. As of March, they each held 19.5 million shares, or a 1.95% interest. However, since then, KKR has pared its holding on three occasions, offloading 17.3 million shares for INR14.7 billion.

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• Topics
• South Asia
• Financials
• Open market
• India
• insurance
• The Carlyle Group