Eco Survey: FDI, IPOs, simplified rules may accelerate M&As in insurance

Additional foreign direct investment inflows, initial public offerings, simplified rules, and improved corporate valuations will likely accelerate mergers and acquisitions (M&As) in the insurance sector, the Economic Survey of 2022-23 noted. 

The Survey points out that the highly competitive sector is already witnessing M&As as insurers have huge opportunities and volume to co-exist in the space. 

A rapidly maturing insurance market has provided a lucrative opportunity to the govern­ment to privatise its stake in the insurance business. Accordingly, the General Insurance Business (Nationalisation) Amendment Act, 2021, allows the Centre to pare its stake to less than 51 per cent of the equity capital in a specified insurer, it said. 

The Survey has noted that India is poised to emerge as one of the fastest-growing insurance markets in the coming decades as government interventions and cond­ucive regulatory environment have led to product innovations and vibrant distribution channels. With the war in Ukraine weighing on economic growth in Europe, it is expected that insurance industry growth in emerging markets will outpace that in the developed markets this year, with emerging Asia in the lead, it said.