M&A In Insurance – Paradise Lost And Found?

The Indian insurance sector has come a long way over the past decade with some of the marque international insurance players tying up with domestic partners to promote insurance companies in India. While the marriage between foreign investors and domestic partners has been successful for the most part, there has always been a sense of expectation with foreign investors that the insurance sector would be liberalised and they would be permitted a larger and more prominent role, where their shareholding in domestic insurance companies is commensurate to the expertise that they bring to the table.

Given the aforesaid dynamic, all players in the insurance sector had been eagerly awaiting the Insurance Laws (Amendment) Act, 2015 ("Amendment Act") and while the Amendment Act did not disappoint the industry when it came to increasing foreign shareholding thresholds (i.e. increasing the limit from 26% to 49%), the unequivocal affirmation that all Indian insurance companies