Piramal sells insights unit for $950 million
NEW DELHI: Piramal Enterprises Ltd will use the proceeds from the sale of its healthcare insights and analytics business to expand its financial services business, seeking to take advantage of opportunities created by the liquidity crisis in the non-banking financial company (NBFC) space, said Piramal Enterprises chairman Ajay Piramal.
On Friday, Piramal Enterprises informed the stock exchanges that it was selling its healthcare insights and analytics business, Decision Resources Group (DRG), to Nyse-listed Clarivate Analytics Plc. for $950 million.
DRG specialises in enabling the world’s leading pharma, biotech and medical technology companies to achieve commercial success in complex health markets with effective patientcentric commercial strategies.
The Ajay Piramal-led company invested $650 million in 2012 to acquire DRG, of which $260 million was equity. It has realized 2.3 times its initial investment in rupee terms.
“₹6,500 crore of total enterprize value of the company and that is the amount that will come into the balance sheet. We will not use this money for pharma, this money will go into the financial services business. I made a commitment in the earlier part of the year that we will raise around ₹8,000-10,000 crore equity in the company, so now we have exceeded that,” Piramal said over the phone.
Besides, Piramal is raising a ₹3,650-crore rights issue, and another ₹1,750 crore through a preferential allotment to Canadian pension fund manager Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec (CDPQ). . Piramal said the capital will be used to grow and diversify its lending business.
It will also look at inorganic opportunities for growth. “I see consolidation taking place in the NBFC space, which means that the larger ones and the stronger ones will become stronger. In the environment today there are not that many NBFCS that are lending so there are opportunities that we will have,” said Piramal.