Sachin Bansal gets CCI nod for acquiring Essel Mututal Fund

Sachin Bansal’s BAC Acquisition has received Competition Commission Of India (CCI ) Green Channel approval to acquire Zee group’s Essel Mutual Fund and its ancillary entities. 

Earlier this year Bansal’s close aide, Ankit Aggarwal had met with executives of the mutual fund to finalize the details of the acquisition of the distressed Mutual Fund. The approval is first of its kind and was announced by the antitrust body’s twitter handle on Monday. 

CCI found that the proposed combination raises no risk of any adverse effect on competition as per Section 6(1) of the Competition Act, and Green Channel approval was given as the involved parties do not have horizontal/vertical overlaps or complementary businesses.

Essel AMC acts as an investment manager to Essel MF and EFWZPL is the sponsoring entity for Essel MF and the parent entity of both Essel AMC and Essel Trustee.

CIFCPL is a microfinance firm part of the Flipkart founder’s portfolio and is run by NBFC Chaitanya Rural Intermediation Development Services(CRIDS). Last month Sachin Basal had invested Rs 750 crore in CRIDS and became the CEO of the NBFC. 

Essel Mutual Fund, part of  Subhash Chandra’s Essel group was launched in 2009 and had total assets under management worth Rs. 1416.41 crore at the closing of the last financial year.

With microfinance firm CRIDS and Essel Mutual Fund, Bansal has been moving towards creating a full-stack financial service company such as Edelweiss and IL&FS. According to Entrackr’s sources, he had also tried to obtain a banking licence. However, RBI didn’t convince and turned down the approval request.