Paytm and its founder and CEO, Vijay Shekhar Sharma, are together acquiring Raheja QBE General Insurance Company from the Rajan Raheja Group and Australia’s QBE Insurance Group. Sharma announced Monday that he has finalized a deal with Prism Cement to buy the latter’s 51% stake in Raheja QBE. The all-cash deal is reportedly worth Rs. 289.68 crore (~$38 million), which values Raheja QBE at 568 crores (~$76 million). He will also acquire the remaining stake in the insurer held by the Australian company.
The acquisition will happen through QORQl Pvt. Ltd, a firm in which Sharma personally holds a majority stake. Paytm, owned by One97 Communications, holds the remaining stake in the company. The acquisition will help Paytm enter the insurance space as part of its plans to diversify its business and expand its reach across the country.
In a statement issued earlier today, Paytm president, Amit Nayyar said: “(QBE’s) strong management team will help us accelerate our journey of taking insurance to the large population of India with the aim to create a tech-driven, multi-channel general insurance company”. In a separate statement, QBE’s Australia Pacific CEO, Vivek Bhatia, said the move would help simplify the group’s business.
Started in 2009, Raheja QBE is a joint-venture between Prism Johnson Limited and QBE Insurance Group. It is a general insurance company which offers insurance products across a wide range of categories. That includes health, home, vehicles and more. It also provides insurance on commercial properties, as well as cover for workplace injuries and more. According to TechCrunch, the company has over 41,000 customers and, sold 69,000 new policies in FY2019-2020.
