American co Ebix picks up 80% stake in Itzcash for Rs 800 cr

Payments company Itzcash today said Nasdaq-listed insurance software solutions firm Ebix has invested Rs 800 crore to pick up a 80 per cent stake in it.
Financial investors including Matrix Partners, Lightspeed Venture Partners and Intel Capital exited their investments and there was also issue of fresh equity to Ebix, Itzcash's chief growth officer Bhavik Vasa told PTI.
The Essel Group, the original promoter of the company, will hold 20 per cent in the company after the deal.
He said all the investors are exiting with 3-5x returns, but refused to divulge the equity dilution for the promoter Essel group as part of the deal.

The ten-year-old company turned profitable in fiscal 2016-17 and has been notching a 35 per cent growth in revenues every year for each of the past three fiscals, he said.
It is into payments, remittances, bill payments and corporate solutions at present through an omnichannel distribution strategy that is biased towards physical with 75,000 points of presence.

The company will continue to serve the middle-income consumers rather than focusing on the digitally savvy population and use the fresh capital to increase the points of presence to 1 lakh by March 2018 and also enter loan and insurance distribution, he said.

It is also looking to expand overseas using the expertise and connections of Ebix, he said, adding the new majority shareholder has a presence in 40 countries.
Itzcash, which entered the point of sale machines at merchant establishments after the note ban, is planning to ramp up the number of machines by four fold over the next 18 months to 1 lakh, Vasa said.
It may look at a listing in the future, and evaluate the plans sometime later, he said, declining to give a timeline.
The company is unwilling to go back to entering the Payments Bank space, and will look at the Small Finance Bank option much more keenly in the future, he said.