Premji Invest and SBI General Insurance are exploring a potential joint bid to acquire Future Group and Generali Group’s joint venture, Future Generali according to reports.

Premji Invest, Wipro founder Azim Premji’s investment firm and SBI General Insurance are likely to place a joint bid to acquire a stake in the Kishore Biyani-led Future Group JV, Times of India reported.

Future Group has been looking to offload its stake in the JV for a while now while Italy’s Generali Group is also said to be considering an exit from the Indian market, the report said.

According to a LiveMint report, Future Group had hired merchant banker UBS for scouting potential buyers wile Generali Group had recruited Citigroup Global Markets to find possible buyers for its stake.

Apart from Premji Invest, Future Group has also held discussions with private equity fund True North and Sunil Munjal-promoted Hero Corporate Services as per reports.

Premji Invest and SBI General Insurance are likely to place a joint bid for the stake.

Premji Invest had acquired a 16.01 per cent stake in private sector SBI General Insurance Company last year after Insurance Australia Group (IAG) had offloaded its 26 per cent stake in the company in a bid to exit its joint venture.

If Generali exits the JV, this could be a full-blown acquisition for Future Generali. Premji Invest and SBI General Insurance are likely to merge Future Generali General Insurance with SBI General Insurance if the deal goes through, according to the TOI report.

Future Group is likely to pay off a part of its existing debts through the stake sale given the group’s fluid financial situation.

Credit rating agency ICRA had recently said that the debt of Future Group’s six listed firms increased to ₹12,778 crore as of September 2019 from ₹11,463 crore in March 2019.

The Biyani-led group is also likely to sell its majority stake in its retail arm, Future retail to Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Retail as per previous reports.

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