Indian credit rating agency CRISIL Ltd is selling its entire 49 per cent stake in India Index Services & Products Ltd (IISL), a joint venture with NSE India, to its JV partner's arm NSE Strategic Investment Corporation Ltd for Rs 100 crore ($15.49 million), as per a stock market disclosure.
The stake sale comprises 6,37,000 shares of face value Rs 10 each representing 49 per cent of the total equity share capital of IISL.
The development comes after National Stock Exchange discontinued its branding contract with global ratings agency Standard & Poor's under which it used the S&P brand to market its indices in January this year. In February S&P Dow Jones Indices tied up with the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) to use the indices of India’s oldest bourse.
Founded in 1998, Mumbai-based IISL provides indices and index related services and products. It develops, constructs and maintains indices on Indian equities and provides data and information on the trading activity in the Indian stock markets.
IISL maintains over 80 equity indices comprising broad-based benchmark indices, sectoral indices and customised indices.
NSE Strategic Investment Corporation, a newly formed subsidiary of the National Stock Exchange, is engaged in indices and index related services and products.
Recently, S&P's parent firm McGraw Hill Financial Inc acquired additional 15.1 per cent stake in CRISIL for Rs 1,290 crore through a voluntary open offer to take its holding to 67.8 per cent.
Over the past five years, CRISIL’s revenues increased at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 19.3 per cent. In 2012, CRISIL posted total revenues of Rs 978 crore, 63 per cent of which was generated outside India.