US private equity fund CA Rover Holdings, part of Carlyle Group and an affiliate of Carlyle Asia Partners, has sold a 3.4 per cent stake in SBI Cards, the country’s largest pure play credit card issuer, for $443 million (₹3,267 crore). The transaction was put through stock exchanges under the bulk deal window on Tuesday.

According to bulk deal data with the NSE, the PE firm sold 3.2 crore shares at an average price of ₹1,021.05. Societe Generale bought 85.06 lakh shares.

Third deal in 2021

On Tuesday, SBI Card shares, which opened at ₹1,030.90 a piece, closed at ₹1,064 after hitting a day’s low of ₹1,012. This was Carlyle’s ( CA Rover Holdings) third transaction of the stake sale in SBI Card this year. It maybe recalled that CA Rover had, in March this year, sold 4 crore shares ( about 5 per cent stake) at a price of ₹985.90 per share in SBI Cards for about ₹3,944 crore.

In June this year, CA Rover had sold near 4 per cent stake for ₹3,750 crore at ₹1,002 a share (37.4 million shares sold via block deal).

Carlyle, in 2017, had acquired 26 per cent stake in SBI Cards from GE group for ₹2,000 crore. It had also made a partial exit in the SBI Cards IPO that hit the market in March 2020. Carlyle held 15.86 per cent stake in SBI Cards as of March 16. State Bank of India, in 2017, hiked its stake in SBI Cards (two entities and later merged) to 74 per cent.

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