Max Financial Services falls over 12% on reports of merger delay

Shares of Max Financial Services fell as much as 12.2% to Rs 541 on merger delay with HDFC Life. Business Standard earlier reported that HDFC Life was getting back into the IPO mode since getting regulatory approvals for a merger with Max Life was taking an inordinate amount of time. Click here for full story
 
The merger of HDFC Life and Max Life, which was announced in August 2016, ran into rough weather after the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (Irdai) sent it to the attorney general (AG) for approval.
 
According to the three-stage deal, Max Life was to merge with Max Financial Services, which would, in turn, merge with HDFC Life. The deal would enable HDFC Life to get listed automatically on the stock exchanges since Max Financial Services is already a listed company, the news report added.

 

At 12:47 pm, Max Financial Services was trading at Rs 559, down by Rs 62.35 or 10% from its previous closing of Rs 621.35 on the BSE.
 
The scrip opened at Rs 616 and has touched a high and low of Rs 616 and Rs 541 respectively. So far 2200886(NSE+BSE) shares were traded on the counter. The current market cap of the company is Rs 16609.39 crore.
 
On Tuesday, media outlets reported that the HDFC Life- Max Life deal proposal had been returned by the AG to Irdai without any comment. While both the companies did not confirm the development, in a joint statement, they said: “We have heard media reports about this development but don’t have an independent confirmation. HDFC and Max Group remain strongly committed to concluding this proposed merger and will be working with the insurance regulator to do so.”