Max Financial Services Ltd said on Tuesday its board has approved a plan to raise funds from KKR Capital Markets India Pvt. Ltd, TPG Global LLC and Standard Chartered Bank.
The fundraising is to help unit Max Life Insurance Company Ltd pursue an acquisition opportunity, Max Financial said in a stock-exchange filing. It didn’t elaborate.
The company didn’t specify the amount it would mobilise and whether it would raise equity funding or debt. But it said the amount will be within the limits approved by the board earlier and will be finalised once the acquisition opportunity materialises.
TPG Global generally provides equity financing while Standard Chartered Bank and KKR Capital may arrange or provide debt financing.
Billionaire Analjit Singh-led Max Financial has been exploring fundraising plans to finance M&A deals for the past couple of months. On 21 March, the company had told the exchanges its board approved a plan to borrow Rs 5,000 crore to finance acquisition opportunities by the insurance unit.
Max Life has been trying to engineer M&As for more than a year. Last year, the Max group scrapped a planned merger of Max Life with HDFC Life Insurance Company Ltd because of regulatory hurdles.
In September last year, Max Life was reported to be in exploratory talks with diversified conglomerate Aditya Birla Group to merge their life insurance businesses. Singh was also said to be in talks with UK-based Northern Trust and global private equity firm Apax Partners to sell his 30% stake in Max Financial.
Earlier this year, media reports said Max Life had emerged as a front-runner for IDBI Federal Life valuing the latter at around Rs 6,000 crore.
