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Business News/ Companies / BNP keen to increase stake in insurance JV with SBI
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BNP keen to increase stake in insurance JV with SBI

The French company is keen to raise its stake to 49%, said the Bloomberg report

The move comes after Parliament voted on 12 March to increase the amount foreign investors can own in the nation’s insurers to 49% from 26%. Photo: Pradeep Gaur/MintPremium
The move comes after Parliament voted on 12 March to increase the amount foreign investors can own in the nation’s insurers to 49% from 26%. Photo: Pradeep Gaur/Mint

Mumbai: State Bank of India, India’s biggest lender, could be paring its stake in its insurance joint venture in favour of its partner BNP Paribas, Bloomberg news agency reported on Friday.

SBI was not immediately available for comments. A separate Bloomberg report quoted a BNP Paribas spokesperson as saying that the French company would be interested in raising stake in the venture.

SBI’s stake in the insurance venture, SBI Life Insurance Co., is at 74%. BNP Paribas Cardif holds the rest. The French company is keen to raise its stake to 49%, said the Bloomberg report.

The move comes after Parliament voted on 12 March to allow foreign investors to raise stake in domestic insurance ventures to 49% from 26%.

In a 22 December interview, SBI chief Arundhati Bhattacharya had said the bank was looking at reducing its stake in various subsidiaries.

“We have a lot of subsidiaries which are of very good value. Insurance is there, we have a card subsidiary that is doing exceedingly well, mutual funds subsidiary is there, investment banking arm. We can always unlock that value by listing them, but then I have to take other people along and see what they want to do. Listing would be preferred to unlock the value than exiting them," Bhattacharya had said.

At 2.20pm, shares of SBI were trading at Rs280.50, down 0.4%. The benchmark Senex was trading at 28,286, down 0.64%.

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Published: 20 Mar 2015, 02:35 PM IST
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