Shriram Finance turns India's largest retail NBFC after merger: Group

The company has net worth of Rs 40,900 crore and assets under management of Rs 1,71,000 crore

Shriram Transport Finance Company (STFC), India's largest financier of commercial vehicles, and Shriram City Union Finance, the largest two-wheeler financer, have been merged to form Shriram Finance.

Shriram Finance will be India’s largest retail-focused non-banking financial company, said the Shriram Group on Monday. Shriram Finance will be a diversified player with a net worth of Rs 40,900 crore, assets under management (AUM) of Rs 1,71,000 crore and more than 6.7 million customers. The company said it will serve the self-employed and the micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME).

Umesh Revankar, a Shriram Group veteran, is executive vice chairman of the merged entity. “It is the natural culmination of a journey of 43 years. With the balance sheet strengthened through the merger, we can serve the needs of the market better than ever before. As a customer-focused company, we can bring more products and assist them with access to credit faster. We are looking forward to an exciting phase of sustained double-digit growth,” said Revankar.

“The timing of the merger is brilliant. As India is growing, we are seeing robust demand for credit among MSMEs. We are always close to the market with our over 3600 locations. All our business segments--financing commercial vehicles, MSMEs, personal loans, gold loans, or vehicle loans--are poised to grow,” said Y S Chakravarti, managing director and chief executive officer of Shriram Finance.

Shriram Finance announced the appointment of Jugal Kishor Mohapatra as the company’s chairman and Maya Sinha as an independent director. The Shriram Group was founded in 1979 and it has more than 57,000 employees.

Last week, STFC said in a regulatory filing that it had changed its name to Shriram Finance on November 30. On November 23, the group announced that Shriram Financial Ventures (Chennai) (SFVPL), which was the holding company of Shriram Capital (SCL), will be the new group holding company. SFVPL is jointly owned by Shriram Ownership Trust (SOT) and the Sanlam Group of South Africa.