Religare to Reorganise Business Structure

Financial services firm Religare Enterprises is looking to simplify its business structure by reorganizing its three businesses — finance, health, and capital markets — as separate entities.“Over the past year, we have taken a number of key steps to consolidate our portfolio and maintain a conscious India-focused strategy. To further accelerate the growth of our three businesses, it is very important to create the right enabling framework that would not only simplify our corporate structure but also help in unlocking and maximizing value for all stakeholders across all individual businesses,” said Sunil Godhwani, chairman and managing director, Religare Enterprises.

To ease the restructuring, which has been approved by the board, the bank has also constituted a management committee to examine and assess the process. The committee will be headed by Godhwani. Earlier, Religare had announced it would exit its asset management business and focus only on lending, health insurance, and capital markets verticals. At present, the lending business is operated through the subsidiary Religare Finvest, which has a total book size of Rs 16,310 crore (as of March 31). The subsidiary also has an affordable housing finance business, operated through Religare Housing Finance Development Corporation with a loan book size of Rs 820 crore (as of March 31).

On the other hand, the Care Health Insurance business clocked a gross written premium (GWP) of Rs 503.3 crore in the financial year ended March. Religare Union Bank of India and Corporation Bank are shareholders in the health insurance business. The retail capital markets business is operated through Religare Securities, which is said to serve around 800,000 clients across offline and online platforms. The company believes the entire reorganization process will take 12-14 months.