Eagle Star Keen To Set Up Pension Fund

Insurance major Eagle Star is keen to enter the pension fund business in India once the government clarifies the extent and nature of participation to be allowed to foreign insurance companies.

The recent budget has indicated that public companies such as the General Insurance Corporation and Unit Trust of India will be allowed to set up pension funds in the joint sector.

However, it is not clear whether foreign companies will be allowed to join as partners and, if they are, to what extent.

Eagle Star is, however, reconsidering its alliance with ITC, with which it had entered into a memorandum of understanding on the insurance business.

 

The company has set up an independent office in New Delhi in which ITC will play no part.

Our MoU was limited to carrying out feasibility studies. I cannot speak for ITC. But if ITC is interested, we will be happy to co-operate, Tom Naskret, the companys chief executive for international development told a press conference.

If ITC decides to sell off ITC Classic, then I will presume that it is not interested in continuing in the financial sector, he added in reply to a question.

The companys investment arm, Threadneedle, has entered the mutual fund business in collaboration with ITC Classic.

Sources in the company pointed out that feasibility studies on customer requirements and market preferences had been commissioned with Mode and IMRB. There is very little that the ITC-Eagle Star alliance has done by way of feasibility studies besides commissioning the studies.

On whether Eagle Star was interested in entering the health insurance business which has been opened up in the budget, Naskret said that the company was not involved in primary health insurance business. Health insurance was merely factored into the companys other policies.

Eagle Star operates in 30 countries and has $ 24 billion under its management which makes it larger than GIC and Life Insurance Corporation put together.

It had been active in India since 1894 and boasted of Birlas and Brooke Bond as its customers before the sector was nationalised.