Shriram Financial Ventures to be holding company in Shriram Group recast

SCL, the existing holding company of the Group, and Shriram City Union Finance will merge shortly with Shriram Transport Finance

As part of the Shriram Group's ongoing restructuring process, Shriram Financial Ventures (Chennai) (SFVPL), which was the holding company of Shriram Capital (SCL), is set to become the new holding company of the Group as a whole.

SCL, the existing holding company of the Shriram Group, and Shriram City Union Finance will merge shortly with Shriram Transport Finance (STFC), the group said in a statement on Wednesday.

Consequently SFVPL, which was the holding company of SCL, will become the promoter and holding company of the group's financial services and insurance businesses.

SFVPL is jointly owned by Shriram Ownership Trust (SOT) and Sanlam Group of South Africa. It will help each of its investee companies to expand and grow, while continuing to look for newer business opportunities in the financial services space, the company said. The primary focus would be to drive growth using technology and finance.

D V Ravi, the Managing Trustee of SOT, and erstwhile Managing Director of SCL will be the Vice Chairman and Managing Director of SFVPL. “At a group level, we have completed a comprehensive exercise of simplifying the corporate structure and businesses under SFVPL, and will now be focusing on facilitating the growth in the NBFC (non-banking financial services) and insurance spaces, while also evaluate emerging opportunities and new initiatives in these domains,” said Ravi.

Subhasri Sriram, who was the Executive Director and Chief Financial Officer of Shriram Capital, and N S Nanda Kishore, Director and CEO of Novac Technology Solutions, will be the Joint Managing Directors. Sriram has expertise in finance, investor relations, entity structuring and new initiatives.  Kishore specialises in technology, digital, synergy creation and new initiatives.

The board of SFVPL will consist of nominee directors, whole-time directors, and independent directors, with K P Krishnan (retired civil service officer) as its independent director and non-executive chairman.

The Shriram Group as a whole has an overall customer base of over 23.4 million, more than 100,000 employees across 4,150 branches and assets under management (AUM) of in excess of Rs 2.25 trillion.