PremiumMumbai: American private equity firm Warburg Pincus on Wednesday sold its remaining 2.7% stake in general insurer ICICI Lombard General Insurance Co. Ltd, for ₹1,378 crore (approximately $194.5 million).
According to data from stock exchanges, Red Bloom Investments, through which Warburg Pincus held the stake, sold its entire shareholding comprising of 1.22 crore shares for a price of ₹1,122.27 apiece. ICICI Lombard’s shares closed the day at ₹1,128.6 per share, down 4.15% on the BSE.
The stake sale marked a complete exit from the company for Warburg, which had invested in ICICI Lombard in 2017, ahead of the insurer’s initial public offering.
Warburg had acquired the 9% stake in ICICI Lombard from Fairfax Financial Corp. In May 2017, Fairfax sold a 12.18% stake in ICICI Lombard in a pre-IPO round to Warburg Pincus and other investors for around $383 million (around ₹2,372.5 crore then). The share sale valued the insurance company at ₹20,500 crore.
In September 2017, ICICI Lombard went public in an IPO that valued the company at ₹30,000 crore and saw the company’s two sponsors, ICICI Bank Ltd and Fairfax, sell shares worth ₹5,700 crore. The two had set up the insurance firm in 2001.
As on Wednesday, the company’s market capitalisation was worth ₹51,285.4 crore.
Warburg started selling its ICICI Lombard stake last year, when in November it sold a 3.14% stake for ₹1,062 crore. In June, the PE firm sold another 3.15% stake for around ₹1,577 crore.
