Hyderabad, Sept 03:
The final regulatory approval, facilitating the take over of Bharti Axa General Insurance by ICICI Lombard General Insurance, has come in as the Hyderabad based Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (Irdai) on Friday gave its final approval for the Rs 4200 crore deal.
IRDAI in its board meeting on Thursday had approved the deal.which was announced in Aug 2020.
Post merger of Bhart Axa General Insurer, will become the second largest general insurer, in terms of annual premium, in the country, pushing state owned United India Insurnace into the third position,with the New India Assurance as the largest general insurance company.It has taken almost 21 years for ICICI Lomabrd General Insurance to reach the second spot in the general insurance industry.
Till July, the combined premium of ICICI Lombard General Insurance and Bharti Axa General Insurance is at Rs 5708 crore while UII is at around Rs 5200 crore during the period,
The National Company Law Tribunal (“NCLT”), and the Competition Commission of India (CCI) had already approvred the deal
The merger of Bharti Axa General Insurance with ICICI Lombard General Insurance, had earlier got formalised in an all-stock deal, valued at €521 million(approximately Rs 4,200 crore).
The shareholders of Bharti AXA will receive two shares of ICICI Lombard for every 115 shares of Bharti AXA held by them as on the date as the scheme of arrangement is approved by the board of directors of ICICI Lombard and Bharti AXA.
The consolidated entity will have a market share of about 8.7 per cent on a pro forma basis in the non-life business,
Bharti Enterprises currently owns 51 per cent stake in Bharti AXA General Insurance, while French insurer AXA has 49 per cent.Post demerger, Bharti AXA General Insurance will cease to be a going concern and both Bharti and AXA will be public shareholders.