Bharti’s intention is to ensure that the life Insurance business continues to serve the Indian market and, in this regard, it is engaging with other strategic and financial investors to partner and or combine, so as continue to scale this business
New Delhi:
Sunil Bharti Mittal owned telecom major Bharti group today announced it will buy out its French partner AXA’s 49 per cent stake in its 17-year old Indian life insurance joint venture- Bharti AXA Life Insurance Company.
After the deal, AXA, one of the major European re/insurance group, would be completely exiting both Indian life and non-life insurance market. It had earlier decided to wind up its Delhi based life and health reinsurance business in India and has now left with AXA XL, which does P&C(Property Casualty) reinsurance business operating out of Mumbai.
Bharti’s intention is to ensure that the life Insurance business continues to serve the Indian market and, in this regard, it is engaging with other strategic and financial investors to partner and or combine, so as continue to scale this business, said the company.
Going by the statement from Bharti, which had earlier had decided to exit insurance business, now wants to continue in life insurance business, said analysts.
In fact, earlier, both Bharti and Axa were looking for a third parties to sell their Indian life and non-life insurance business but could only sell their non-life insurance business to ICICI Lombard General Insurance in 2020.
Bharti Life Ventures Private Limited (“BLVPL”), the group’s holding company of Bharti AXA Life Insurance Company Limited, has entered into a binding agreement with its joint venture partner, AXA, to acquire their 49 per cent stake in the Indian life insurance joint venture, said the company.
The transaction is expected to close by December 2023, subject to receipt of regulatory approvals.
However, no financial details of the deals have been disclosed yet.
The transaction is subject to receipt of requisite regulatory approvals. This will result in BLVPL owning 100 per cent stake in the company, post-completion of the transaction.
After Bharti’s and AXA’s decision to merge Bharti AXA General Insurance with ICICI Lombard in August 2020, and the subsequent exit of AXA from the shareholding of ICICI Lombard, BLVPL has now entered into an agreement to acquire AXA’s 49 per cent shareholding and fully own the company.