India’s ICICI to sell stake in life insurance unit to Temasek, Premji

India’s Premji Invest and its affiliates are buying 4 percent of ICICI Prudential Life Insurance Co Ltd, the biggest Indian private sector life insurer, valuing the insurance business at 325 billion rupees($4.9 billion), ICICI Bank said in a statement on Monday.

ICICI Bank today announced it will sell part stake in its life insurance venture to Premji Invest and a company owned by Temasek Holdings of Singapore valuing the company at Rs. 32,500 crores, almost Rs. 5,000 crores lower than what it did when it sold stock options to staff past year.

Established in 2000, ICICI Prudential Life is a joint venture between ICICI Bank and Prudential Plc, a leading worldwide financial services group headquartered in the United Kingdom. The overall life insurance industry is dominated by state behemoth Life Insurance Corporation, which accounts for about two-thirds of the premium collected in the six-month period ended September 30, 2015. During the Fairfax deal, Chanda Kochhar, MD & CEO, ICICI Bank, had said the bank was looking at monetizing its holdings in the life insurance JV too.

Upon completion of the transaction, ICICI Bank will hold approximately 68 per cent share of the Company.

For PremjiInvest, this adds to around half-a-dozen investments in India since January besides a few deals related to overseas tech startups. This makes it the most active PE-style investor in the country in terms of number of transactions.

Government had earlier this year allowed higher foreign ownership in the $50 billion insurance sector that has been starved of capital.