IRDAI approves True North's stake purchase in Max Bupa Health Insurance

The Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI) has approved Max India's divestment of 51 per cent stake in Max Bupa Health Insurance Company to private equity firm True North.

The all-cash transaction announced in February valued Max Bupa at an enterprise value of Rs 1,001 crore.

Bupa, the existing joint venture partner in Max Bupa, remains committed to the joint venture and will continue to play an active role as before through its board positions and knowledge exchange initiatives, according to an official statement.

Post IRDAI approval, the transaction is now expected to be concluded within the next few weeks. All existing customer policies will continue unimpacted and all customer support channels will remain unchanged, said Max India which is a part of the billion multi-business corporate Max Group.

True North is an active investor in Indian assets. It has invested in more than 50 Indian businesses over the last 20 years through its six investment funds with a combined corpus of over 2.9 billion dollars. Over the years, True North has made investments of Rs 7,300 crore across financial services and healthcare sectors.

"We are delighted to receive the approval from the IRDAI," said Maninder Singh Juneja, Partner at True North. "Along with our partner Bupa -- global leaders in healthcare insurance -- we look forward to building the country's most trusted and customer-centric health insurance company."

Mohit Talwar, Vice President of Max Group and Managing Director of Max India, said the transaction will lead to a substantial cash inflow for Max India. "As a part of our portfolio rebalancing exercise, we intend to utilise part of the proceeds to invest in both existing and new business opportunities," he said.

The process of conclusion of Max Bupa's divestment will run in parallel and independent of the composite transaction involving demerger of Max India and the merger of Max Healthcare and Radiant-KKR.