BNP Paribas completes acquisition of Sharekhan
BNP Paribas has completed its acquisition of Sharekhan, having received all the necessary regulatory approvals. The move will allow BNP to expand its retail banking operations in India, where it currently operates corporate and retail banking, investment banking, and wealth management.

Mumbai: French bank BNP Paribas SA on Thursday said it has completed the acquisition of brokerage Sharekhan, after receiving approvals from all relevant regulatory authorities.

The transaction, which was first announced in July 2015, has now been finalized.

With this, Sharekhan has become a subsidiary of BNP Paribas SA, joining Personal Investors, BNP Paribas’ business line dedicated to digital banking and investment services that serves 2.9 million individual customers across four geographies: India, Germany, Austria and Spain.

BNP Paribas also said Tarun Shah, CEO and director of Sharekhan, has announced his retirement, while Jaideep Arora, director of the retail-focused brokerage, who has been with Sharekhan since it was founded in 2000, has been appointed CEO with immediate effect.

After rejecting BNP Paribas’s proposal to acquire Sharekhan in June 2016, the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) approved it in October.

In July 2015, the French bank had said it had agreed to acquire Sharekhan after nearly six months of negotiations between existing investors and bidders, including bulge bracket private equity (PE) firms Warburg Pincus Llc. and General Atlantic Llc., which bid together.

Sharekhan was founded in 2000 by Mumbai-based entrepreneur Shripal Morakhia, whose family was in the equity broking business for decades. Till March 2007, the Morakhia family owned a 43.58% stake in the brokerage. Over the years, this holding was sold to PE investors.

The purchase will reinforce BNP Paribas’s retail broking operations in a country where it offers corporate and retail banking, investment banking and wealth management. It will also allow it to further expand into brokerages as well as asset management in India, BNP Paribas had said at the time of acquisition announcement.