New Delhi: Ebix Inc has announced that it will acquire online travel services provider Yatra for an enterprise value of about Rs 2,314 crore. Given the debt Yatra holds, the eventual price of the deal is expected be in the range of Rs 1,653-1,722 crore.
Ebix will issue 243,747 convertible preferred stock, which in turn will be convertible into 4,874,931 shares of Ebix common stock. The merged entity will become one of India’s largest travel services provider and enterprise financial exchange in the country.
“We are excited by the cross-selling opportunities that this combination provides us, while further strengthening our future EbixCash IPO offering,” Ebix Chairman and CEO Robin Raina said in a written statement.
“We are pleased to announce this agreement with Ebix, which provides our shareholders with the opportunity to participate in the significant upside potential of one of the fastest growing multinational On-Demand software and E-commerce services companies in the world,” said Dhruv Shringi, Co-founder and CEO of Yatra Online.
After MakeMyTrip acquired rival GoIbibo, Yatra was facing a stiff challenge from the combine.
Robin Raina, Man of the Moment
With the move to acquire online travel service provider Yatra, the Atlanta-headquartered software services firm Ebix Inc and its 51-year-old flamboyant CEO Robin Raina have once again hit the headlines. The deal would help $2-billion Ebix create an end-to-end enterprise financial and insurance service player.
A philanthropist, socialite and a fitness enthusiast, Raina wears many hats. He has led Ebix's growth for around two decades. The company is reported to have invested half a billion dollars in India in 2017-2018 alone. Raina, who initially wanted to be a medical professional, did most of his schooling in Patiala. While his dream to become a doctor did not crystalise, he pursued industrial engineering from Thapar University in Punjab and joined a company called Pertech Computers. The company entered into a joint venture with Dell later. In 1993, he joined Mindware and moved to Singapore. He changed a few jobs before joining Ebix, then known as Delphi Information Systems, in 2000.
Raina has been involved in supporting the education of underprivileged children and housing for homeless in India. As per the information on Raina Foundation webpage, he has built and handed over 1800 homes to slum dwellers in Delhi. The foundation aims to construct 6,000 houses for the homeless. He has also produced an award-winning documentary called Dilli which depicted the lives of Delhi’s slum dwellers.
In a recent interview with CNBC-TV18, he said: “We are trying to build an ecosystem in India, a complete end-to-end financial exchange and the move to acquire Yatra is a step in that direction. We already are the largest financial exchange in India and we consider travel a very integral part of building this financial ecosystem.”
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