EbixCash to file draft papers for a $1 bn IPO

By Rantheep Singh22nd February 202210th March 2022Business, News

Share If You Like The Article

The company aims to list its business at a valuation of around ₹37,500 cr

MUMBAI : EbixCash, the Indian subsidiary of Nasdaq-listed Ebix Inc., will soon file draft papers for its initial public offering (IPO) to raise as much as ₹7,500 crore, two people aware of the development said.

EbixCash is involved in various financial services businesses that span business-to-customer (B2C) distribution, business-to-business (B2B), back-end systems, digital payments solutions, domestic and international money transfer services, travel, insurance, and corporate and incentive solutions. The company claims to process more than $18 billion in gross merchandise value.

“The IPO will be a completely fresh issue of shares,” said one of the two people cited above, both of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity. The company is being advised by investment banks Motilal Oswal, Equirus Capital, ICICI Securities, SBI Capital, and Yes Securities, he said. The company aims to list at a valuation of around ₹37,500 crore, he added.

EbixCash is likely to file its draft prospectus this week, the second person said.

“EbixCash has more than 320,000 distribution outlets in India and holds a leadership position when it comes to forex and inward remittances and accounted for $7 billion in foreign exchange annually and $6.5 billion in remittances per year in the pre-covid era. It caters to 91% of the inward money transfers for Western Union. In the financial technologies domain it has more than 150 lending solution installations, over 60 AMC clients globally, and more than 32 banking, financial services and insurance clients in India. Its exclusive partnership with MoneyGram has seen it service a remittance volume of $2 billion annually,” the second person said.

EbixCash entered India in 2017 with its purchase of ItzCash from Essel Group. The company has scaled up its business in India through an aggressive inorganic growth strategy. Since its entry in the Indian continent, it acquired 26 enterprises across forex, remittance, education, fintech and travel, among others.

“EbixCash has laid out a strategy to build an ‘airport of financial transactions’ by trying to bring B2C and B2B services across a spectrum of financial transactions on the same platform,” the first person said.

In its travel business, the company has partnerships with global travel companies such as Travelport and Sabre and caters to more than 10,000 corporate clients through its brands Via and Mercury.

The company also has a joint venture with BSE to facilitate sale of insurance to the last mile in India. Recently, it announced that it will sell life and health policies for Life Insurance Corp. of India through its network.

EbixCash recently named Uma Shankar, former executive director of Reserve Bank of India to its board, following uthe addition of S.P. Kothari, former chairperson of the economic wing of the US Securities and Exchange Commission, Sunil Srivastav, former deputy managing director of State Bank of India, and S. Ravi, former BSE chairman, as independent board members.

An email sent to EbixCash did not elicit a response till press time.

Share If You Like The Article