AZB & Partners advise FAL Corporation in the Sale of shares in ICICI Lombard

Canadian billionaire Prem Watsa’s Fairfax sold its 4.91% stake in ICICI Lombard General Insurance Co. Ltd. shares worth Rs. 2,626.5 crore, ending its 18 year run as an investor in the company thereby exiting the firm it co-founded with ICICI Bank in 2001. FAL Corporation, a subsidiary of Canada based Fairfax sold 2.23 crore shares for Rs1,177.64 a piece.

The move comes after the insurance regulator Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority (IRDA) relaxed the five-year lock-in rule for Fairfax’s stake in ICICI Lombard, which was scheduled to end in March 2021. On September 27, Fairfax had sold nearly 5 per cent stake in ICICI Lombard for Rs. 2,562 crore. Back then, L&T Mutual Fund (MF), SBI MF, ICICI Prudential MF, and Aditya Birla Sun Life MF were among the buyers.

ICICI Lombard was set up in 2001, a 64:36 joint venture (JV) between ICICI Bank and Fairfax. The latter has reduced its stake in the JV over the years. When ICICI Lombard came out with an initial public offering in September 2017, Fairfax had sold its 12 per cent stake, while ICICI Bank had sold nearly 7 per cent.

The total consideration of the deal is INR 26.3 Billion / USD 369.5 Million.

AZB & Partners advised FAL Corporation in this deal. The Partners who were involved in this deal were Varoon Chandra, Arvind Ramesh and Richa Choudhary and the Senior Associate involved in this deal was Rutunjay Singh.