Dvara KGFS (formerly IFMR Rural Channels and Services), an NBFC under Dvara Trust that caters to rural towns across India, on Tuesday announced that it acquired Varam Capital Private Limited an NBFC – MFI.
Dvara KGFS is present in Tamil Nadu, Uttarakhand, Karnataka and Odisha, across 33 districts with 221 branches and over eight lakh customers. According to Dvara, Varam Capital’s presence in Chhattisgarh and products will enable the combined entity to have a bigger presence in the country’ eastern region. Varam Capital is also present in Tamil Nadu and has a total of 28 branches in both states across 12 districts with over one lakh customers.
The combined entity’s assets under management is pegged at Rs 750 crores, which is expected to grow to Rs 1200 crores by the end of FY 2019-2020, according to Samir Shah, Executive Vice Chair & Group President of Dvara Trust.
Commenting on the acquisition, he said, “We aim to grow geographically and continue to build a strong digital platform and data science architecture that helps us understand our remote rural customers better and thereby offer them a full-service wealth management experience that would eventually create financial freedom to them. The key priority and focus is to execute on the growth strategy of Dvara KGFS. With the additional customers, talent and tech capability from Varam, we feel this enhances our ability to execute with greater confidence”.
Post this acquisition, the board has appointed Joby CO, CEO of Varam Capital as the CEO of Dvara KGFS and LVLN Murty as the Deputy CEO. Joby CO, speaking on the future plans of the entity said “ We are also looking at strengthening Orissa and Jharkhand. Our priority is to build expertise to develop multi product offering, give a lot more focus to Micro Enterprise Loan, affordable housing segments and relook at the entire Jewel Loan portfolio.”
Source: Economic Times