Private equity firm PAG is assessing whether to restart a sale process for its controlling holding in Nuvama Wealth Management, formerly called Edelweiss Wealth Management, reported Moneycontrol citing sources.
Recent shareholding disclosures show PAG owns 54.13% of Nuvama Wealth Management through Asia Pragati Strategic Investment Fund and Pagac Ecstasy
Last year, Bloomberg also reported that PAG is weighing options including a sale of its $1.2bn (Rs104.5bn) majority stake in Nuvama. “PAG has been invested for more than 5 years and following an attempt last year which didn’t fructify into an eventual sale due to a valuation mismatch with PE suitors and other factors, it is now weighing an exit again. The market sentiment is better now, and it will be interesting to see how the valuations pan out this time,” one of the people said. PAG invested about $325m to acquire control of Nuvama in March 2021. “Nuvama is a high growth asset with profits of over Rs 1,000 crore.
Soft approaches are understood to have been made by potential suitors though these deliberations are preliminary in nature. No final decision has been taken yet on the deal launch by PAG,” a second person said. A third person said, “Based on early feedback from likely bidders, which may include PE firms as well as strategics, if PAG decides to proceed, then one can expect the formal sale process to kickstart in end July or early August.