Carlyle sells 4% in SBI Life for Rs 3,900 crore

The Carlyle Group raised around Rs 3,936 crore by selling 4.1 crore shares in SBI Life through multiple block deals in Friday, generating a near 2 times return from a two year old investment , exchange and regulatory data showed.

A bunch of global institutional investors including Vanguard, Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, Kuwait Investment Authority and Norges Bank are among investors who bought shares from CA Emerald Investments, an affiliate of Carlyle Asia Partners.

SBI Mutual Fund, HDFC Mutual Fund Franklin Templeton are among the domestic investors, who bought shares from Carlyle. Shares were sold at Rs 960 a piece.

The Washington-headquartered buyout group had acquired a 9% stake in SBI Life Insurance in March 2019 for about $ 652 million in one of its biggest investments in India. The private equity firm purchased the stake from BNP Paribas Cardif SA.

Carlyle divested 3% stake in SBI Life Insurance in November 2019 for about Rs 2,800 crore through an open market transaction.

SBI Life was incorporated as a joint venture between State Bank of India (SBI) and BNP Paribas. Last month BNP sold 5% stake in SBI Life through the open market process to reduce its stake to 0.2%.