Edelweiss-backed Epic Concesiones Acquires 100% Stake in L&T Infrastructure Development Projects Limited (L&T IDPL)

Epic Concesiones Private Limited (ECPL) has acquired 100% of the equity share capital of L&T Infrastructure Development Projects Limited (L&T IDPL).

Incorporated in August 2022, ECPL is a portfolio company of Infrastructure Yield Plus Strategy, which is managed by Edelweiss Alternative Asset Advisors Limited, 

ECPL acquired the stake at an enterprise value of Rs 6,000 crore.

L&T IDPL was a joint venture between Larsen & Toubro Limited and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPP Investments) holding 51% and 49% shares respectively. L&T IDPL has been a pioneer in Public-Private-Partnership (PPP) model of infrastructure development in India. Both L&T (51%) and CPP Investments’ (49%) stakes have been acquired by Epic Concesiones Private Limited. 

This acquisition aligns with L&T's strategy to exit non-core businesses and enhance its return on equity. With this deal, the infrastructure platform will scale up to 26 assets, including roads, power transmission assets, and renewables, with cumulative annual revenue of Rs 3,000 crore.

The acquisition includes -

• 51% of the equity share capital of L&T IDPL from Larsen and Toubro Limited.
• 49% of the equity share capital of L&T IDPL from CPPIB India Private Holdings Inc.
• 100% of the equity share capital of Kudgi Transmission Limited (KTL), a wholly-owned subsidiary of L&T IDPL, by Infrastructure Yield Plus II (IYP II).

L&T IDPL is involved in the development, operation, and maintenance of infrastructure projects under the Public Private Partnership model, L&T IDPL's subsidiaries enter into concession agreements with National Highways Authority of India / State authorities and transmission service agreements with power supply generation / transmission / distribution companies.

KTL is Engaged in developing a transmission system required for power evacuation.

Edelweiss General Insurance Launches An Industry 1st, AI Voice Bot for Automated Motor Claim Registration, Powered by Yellow.ai

• First end to end AI Voice Bot for the GI industry
• Can handle queries from garage representatives for inbound claims processing without any human intervention
• It can converse in three languages, thus eliminating barriers associated with time, language, and geographical coverage. Adding more languages is also in the works

Digital Insurer, Edelweiss General Insurance (EGI), has launched an AI Voice Bot, a digital transformation initiative to enable its customers intimate motor claims in a convenient and seamless manner. This end-to-end AI Voice Bot is the first in the General insurance industry in India, and is powered by Yellow.ai, the world’s leading next-gen Total Experience (TX) Automation Platform recently recognised in the 2022 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Conversational AI Platforms.

This conversational AI Voice Bot, available in Hindi, English and Hinglish, will enable real time registration of claims, 24-7. It has been currently introduced for garage owners and will be offered to all customers as well in a month or two. The AI Voice Bot will assist EGI’s garage representatives in easier, faster and hassle-free registration of claims. There is also no wait time unlike a normal call to the customer care. Once you dial in, the AI Voice Bot will guide you on the claim intimation process in real-time.

In addition to being a claims assistant, the AI Voice Bot can answer questions raised by the garage representatives, thereby delivering a holistic and superior experience. While the AI Voice Bot successfully handles queries, right from discovery to providing the claims registration number without any human intervention, it also seamlessly escalates complex queries to EGI agents, collaborating the combined intelligence of humans and AI. The AI Voice bot is also capable of tackling the issue of background noises that one usually experiences in garages, thereby creating an elevated and consistent experience.

Commenting on the launch, Shanai Ghosh, Executive Director & CEO, Edelweiss General Insurance, said, “Our vision is to make insurance easy, friendly and transparent and our AI Voice Bot is another step in this direction. We are happy to partner with Yellow.ai in this digital transformation journey. While the Bot will definitely offer easy, seamless, and superior experience to our customers, it will also enable and empower our distribution agents and partners to be more efficient and effective and enhance their capabilities.”

Raghu Ravinutala, CEO and Cofounder, Yellow.ai said, “We are delighted to implement an AI Voice Bot for Edelweiss General Insurance. With varying dialects in India, our technology allows tailoring speech recognition models to adapt to users’ speaking styles, expressions, and unique vocabularies, and also to accommodate background noises, accents, and voice patterns. Our voice bots have superior context based intent identification to help understand queries better, provide insights from customer interaction that constantly improve bot performance and understand consumer behaviour.”

The AI Voice Bot is optimised for advanced query handling that includes post-processing for proper nouns such as names, area names and driving license numbers. It also supports seamless integration between Yellow.ai and EGI’s APIs. For instance, once the claims are registered, real-time emails and SMS are sent to both the Claim Service Office (CSO) and the customer, simultaneously sharing the details of the claim registered. Moving forward, the Voice bot capabilities will be further enhanced to include more languages and use cases, covering a wider range of customer service functions.

Edelweiss General Insurance has been introducing many tech driven, industry first, innovative solutions. Some of them being:

1. Edelweiss SWITCH (sandbox product) - India’s first digital, on-demand motor insurance product, enabling pay-as-you-drive
2. Health 241 – ‘’first of a kind’’ health insurance product, where if the first year is claim free, you get covered free for the second year
3. Open API Gateway, a portal is aimed at self-assisted API consumption by partners.
4. IPOS (Integrated Partner On-boarding Solution), a fully digitised solution aimed at completely automating the onboarding process for EGI’s existing and prospective partners.
5. BOLT- Remote survey for motor claims with instant settlement
6. OTP based Health Insurance onboarding
7. Realtime digital NPS providing instant feedback from customers

Yellow.ai is enabling organisations such as EGI to increase their sophistication and usage of automated voice assistants for regular use. Voice-based virtual assistants can be deployed to handle inbound and outbound calls, across real-time telephony and synchronous voice channels. Through the platform, enterprises can build AI-workers to self-serve, support, sales, marketing, commerce, HR and IT on-demand, across chat, email, and voice channels.

About Edelweiss General Insurance

Edelweiss General Insurance (EGI) is a full stack Insurtech and one of the fastest growing players in the Indian non-life Insurance market. It is a digital Insurer that aims to transform insurance making it easy, friendly and transparent. Its digital platform powers fantastic customer experience, innovative solutions and efficient service delivery. It started operations in 2018 and has already won over 10 awards for product innovation and its digital platform. It is India’s first cloud native insurer and the first insurer to launch an open API platform. It has over 2 million active customers and a growing omni-channel distribution on digital rails. It has presence across key digital marketing places and partnerships with over 19 digital partners and customers including PolicyBazaar, Phonepe, Ola, ClearTrip, Dunzo, Intermiles, PayNearby, Instakart, Pazcare, etc.

Consumer insight driven strategy coupled with technology-powered execution is what differentiates EGI in a competitive market. It aims to deliver innovative solutions to customers by leveraging data, analytics and proactive market sensing.

Edelweiss Tokio Life Launches Total Protect Plus, A Comprehensive Protection Solution

Offers optional benefits for multiple goal-linked financial needs

Hyderabad, August 3, 2021: Addressing an emerging need for a one-stop protection solution amid a global pandemic, Edelweiss Tokio Life Insurance today announced the launch of Total Protect Plus, a comprehensive protection plan that offers additional optional benefits to meet goal-linked financial requirements.

Commenting on the new product, Subhrajit Mukhopadhyay, Executive Director, Edelweiss Tokio Life Insurance said, “Over the last decade, there has been a growing clamour for insurance solutions that are all-encompassing and comprehensive in securing financial risks. The pandemic has brought this need into the spotlight. With Total Protect Plus, we hope to provide an inclusive solution to manage customers’ risk and addresses financial needs for all their goals.”

Among its standout optional offerings are Child’s Future Protect and Live Long benefits.

Through Child’s Future Protect benefit, a parent can opt for an enhanced cover during their child’s growing years to ensure their aspirations are uncompromised. In case the insured parent dies before the child turns 25 years of age, an additional payout is made to the nominee.

Through the Live Long benefit, which is a survival benefit, this plan not only offers you protection, but also an income benefit that begins during your non-working years. An individual can choose either 60 years or 65 years as the commencement age, following which they receive an income equal to a certain percentage of the base sum assured.

“There is a higher awareness now for goal-based financial planning, wherein retirement and pure protection occupy a bigger mind space among customers. When designing products, our endeavour is to offer the best value proposition that addresses the existing need gap, be it in terms of a new product or the way existing solutions are offered in the marketspace,” Mukhopadhyay added.

Here are some other key factors that make Total Protect Plus an ideal protection plan:

• Offers a cover till 100 years of age, allowing individuals to leave behind a legacy to their loved ones
• An optional Better Half Benefit, which offers a cover to your spouse post your death
• An optional Return of Premium benefit which allows you to get 100% of total paid premiums back when the policy matures
• Offers the option of either Regular Pay, or Limited Pay of premiums for 5 / 7/ 10/ 15/ 20 years
• Offers 6% discount on first-year premium if medicals completed within 7 days of purchase

Note: For detailed information on the product, click here: https://www.edelweisstokio.in/total-protect-plus

About Edelweiss Tokio Life Insurance

Edelweiss Tokio Life Insurance is a joint venture between India’s Edelweiss Financial Services Ltd and Japan’s Tokio Marine Holdings. The company established its pan-India operations in July 2011 with an immovable focus on protecting people’s dreams and aspirations. Guided by customer insights, the company has been offering need-based and innovative life insurance solutions to help customers live their #ZindagiUnlimited. With a customer-centric approach, the company endeavours to build a multi-channel distribution network to effectively serve over 4 lakhs customers across the country. As of March 2021, the life insurer has established 118 branches in 93 major cities.

Awards:

Edelweiss Tokio Life Insurance has been consistently recognized at several forums like SKOCH Awards 2019 and India Insurance Summit & Awards 2020 for Product Innovation, TISS LeapVault CLO Awards 2019 for its Sales Enablement efforts and Campaign PR Awards India 2020, E4M Indian Content Marketing Awards, & Tokio Marine’s Good Company Awards 2019 for its social initiative on organ donation. Its crowning achievement has been the GUINNESS WORLD RECORDS title for collecting highest number of pledges for organ donation in a single day and Great Place to Work – CertifiedTM.

Ontario Teachers’ partners with Edelweiss Group to Invest $350 Mn (˜INR 2600 crores) in Indian private Credit

• Long term partnership in Edelweiss Alternative Asset Advisors (EAAA), market leaders in Alternatives

• Focused on performing and distressed opportunities in the Indian credit investment space

Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan Board (“Ontario Teachers’”), Canada’s largest single-profession pension plan, and Edelweiss Group, India’s leading diversified financial services conglomerate, are pleased to  announce that Ontario Teachers’ has signed an agreement for an investment of USD 350 million (˜INR 2600 crores) with  Edelweiss Alternate Asset Advisors’ (“EAAA”), the largest private debt manager in India with assets under management of approximately USD 3 billion (˜INR 23,400 crores). The agreement represents a long-term partnership between Ontario Teachers’ and Edelweiss Group that will focus on performing and distressed private credit investment opportunities in the Indian market.

Despite the global economic uncertainty amidst the current pandemic, this commitment from Ontario Teachers’ is a strong endorsement of the Indian alternative asset management space as well as the robust and unique private debt platform built by EAAA.  

Speaking about the development, Rashesh Shah, Chairman and CEO, Edelweiss Group said, “This partnership comes at a time when there is a thrust towards empowering and enabling India to become a global manufacturing hub as vocalised by the Government’s ‘Atmanirbhar – self reliance’ vision. The need for long term patient capital in India presents a huge opportunity for private debt managers. At Edelweiss, we have built deep capabilities in this space and I am honoured by the trust placed in us by the highly respected Ontario Teachers’ team.”

 Confirming the partnership, Gillian Brown, Senior Managing Director, Capital Markets at Ontario Teachers’ said, “We are pleased to enter into a long-term partnership with Edelweiss Group, which has a proven track record and demonstrated ability to originate, underwrite, structure and realize on private credit investments in India. This partnership will further expand our presence in, and provide additional insights on, the important Indian market.”  

Ben Chan, Regional Managing Director, Asia Pacific at Ontario Teachers’ noted, “We are excited to invest with Edelweiss to bolster our exposure to the Indian credit market.  This is an important milestone in our ambition to build multi asset class exposure to India’s long-term growth story.  As a global investor, Ontario Teachers’ hopes to leverage our select list of partners including Edelweiss for local insights and acumen as we navigate to grow profitably in this important market.”

 Venkat Ramaswamy, Vice Chairman & Executive Director, Edelweiss Group added, “We are humbled by the faith that an institution such as Ontario Teachers’ has placed in our ability to manage credit investments and in our strong governance, especially at a time when overall global economic sentiment is subdued. We believe, the opportunity for Alternative Investment funds in India is large, given the need for credit, and we are confident that this partnership will enable Ontario Teachers’ to capitalize on the best of private debt opportunities available in India.

About EAAA

EAAA, the largest Indian private debt platform, is a part of the decade old Edelweiss Asset Management business which manages customer assets aggregating approximately INR 1,00,000 crores across Alternatives, Mutual Funds and Distressed Assets. EAAA focuses on providing high quality investment opportunities in alternatives in India, catering to international and domestic investors. Since inception, it has been attracting investments from some of the largest global insurance companies and pension funds.

About Ontario Teachers’ 

The Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan Board (Ontario Teachers') is the administrator of Canada's largest single-profession pension plan, with $204.7 billion in net assets (all figures at June 30, 2020 unless noted). It holds a diverse global portfolio of assets, approximately 80% of which is managed in-house, and has earned an annual total-fund net return of 9.5% since the plan's founding in 1990. Ontario Teachers' is an independent organization headquartered in Toronto. Its Asia-Pacific region office is located in Hong Kong and its Europe, Middle East & Africa region office is in London. The defined-benefit plan, which is fully funded as at January 1, 2020, invests and administers the pensions of the province of Ontario's 329,000 active and retired teachers.

Edelweiss Decodes Sustainability for MSMEs as part of International MSME Day

Context for panel discussion stemmed from a detailed customer study conducted by Edelweiss with over 2000 MSMEs across India 

Business disruption was significant during the month of April, with improvement in activity and sentiments visible over the last few weeks. 

Optimism and resilience are high among majority of MSMEs, though challenges related to receivables and supply chain continue to impact many of them

Mumbai, June 30^th2020: Edelweiss SME Lending celebrated its third consecutive edition of International MSME Day through a virtual webinar comprising a panel of industry experts. The theme of the panel discussion was ‘MSMEs: New Heroes in the New Normal!’

Rashesh Shah, Chairman & CEO, Edelweiss Group said, “The last 4-5 years have been truly transformative for MSMEs, with the introduction of GST, the India stack and formalisation of the sector and economy. COVID-19 has impacted the MSMEs but it could also potentially be a trend accelerator for the business. The pandemic is opening up fresh opportunities for businesses to script better stories of success. The current economic condition is an opportunity to recalibrate, retest and most importantly repivot. We need to view the current context and the India story with a bi-focal lens, one that balances these short-term challenges, with the long-term opportunity.”

The current situation has posed several challenges to the spirit of entrepreneurship. Survival of business in the long-run and getting payments from clients, remain the top two concerns for SMEs and retail businesses. The webinar sought to acknowledge the contribution of MSMEs in light of current challenges, while leveraging this as a platform to share insights and expertise on what to expect in the near future and thrive, in the new normal that awaits us.  

Panellists included Mr. Mehernosh Tata (Head, Edelweiss SME Lending), Mr. Sunil Srivastava (Ex Dy MD, State Bank of India; Sr. Advisor Edelweiss & World Bank), Mr. Navin Chandani (MD & CEO, CRIF High Mark), Mr. Shailendra Kawade (Promoter & Chairman, Mylab Discovery Solutions) and Mr. Vikas Dimri (Director, SME Head – Trade & Working Capital, Deutsche Bank).

In his closing remarks, Deepak Mittal, CEO Credit, Edelweiss Group, said, “MSMEs are realising that business models will need tweaking, be it in delivery or servicing, in demand aggregation or in digitizing payments. Reinvention and reimagination, have now changed in their definition. MSMEs should seize this opportunity to reconnect with their customers and rethink their proposition. This is a time to be nimble and MSMEs can be far quicker, to leverage emerging opportunities vis-à-vis larger enterprises.”

Key insights from the panel discussion are as follows - 

• While uncertainty is high, fundamentals of business remain the same. Indian businesses are resilient by design. The inherent capability to find ways to survive & thrive shall never be underestimated
• Flexibility, agility and increased adaptability to evolving customer needs, will be key to future sustainability 
• Social distancing will continue, but customer engagement and reach must deepen as we move from a product-centric to customer-centric economy 
• Digital transformation is underway. For a lender, it speeds up decision making and improves quality of credit decisions. For MSMEs, they can access quicker credit when needed. Banks will now have the ability to make better credit decisions
• Digitization, Alternate Data and increased focus of Financial Fitness, will be key to profitability when considering future business models   

About Edelweiss SME Lending:

Edelweiss SME Lending commenced operations in 2013 and has grown organically to service the MSME industry over 100 cities and towns in India and offers small business loans, equipment loans and loans secured against residential, commercial and industrial properties. The delivery is backed by technology platform and use of data analytics to decision the loan faster.

The SME business is one of the early adopters of technology in the lending space and is working on introducing new, innovative products with an objective to entirely serve the MSME eco-system. The business has been at the forefront of testing and adopting several digital initiatives which span customer acquisition, credit decision architecture, on-boarding and customer life cycle management. 

Edelweiss-gallagher Facilitates Pandemic Group Insurance Cover For India’s Informal Sector Workers

Edelweiss-Gallagher, a composite insurance broker in India, has facilitated a Pandemic Group Insurance product for informal sector and frontline workers across industries in India. This initiative was launched recently with a comprehensive COVID-19 indemnity cover solution and is backed by India’s top insurers. 

This Group level insurance solution will provide an insurance cover to food delivery agents, informal sector workers employed by companies in factories as well as frontline workers of hospitals, healthcare providers and pharmaceutical manufacturers, who now find themselves especially vulnerable. 

Edelweiss Gallagher has collaborated with four leading general insurance companies and assisted over 50 corporates to protect their workforce and restart their operations, by incentivizing workers to return from their villages and rejoin work. Overall, Edelweiss-Gallagher Insurance Brokers (EGIB) has spread awareness about this product among over 1.5 lakh SMEs & MSMEs across India.  

Vinay Sohani, CEO at Edelweiss-Gallagher Insurance Brokers, explained: “During these uncertain times, insurers have a critical role in ensuring that business owners are able to safeguard the wellbeing of their people and their families. This collaboration with corporates and insurance companies will help fill a critical gap and benefit companies facing cash flow problems, low demand and disruption in operations.  The online and paperless claims process is seamless and is supported by a dedicated health claims management team.” 

The Insurance policies can be customized for corporates to provide coverage from Rs 50,000 to Rs 50 lakh towards hospitalization cover, at private as well as government hospitals. The coverage will include ICU treatment, road ambulance and access to a secondary medical opinion. The product is exclusive to the Indian market and requires a positive test report for Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) conducted at an ICMR Authorized Test Centre in India.  

Vyvienne Wade, CEO of International Operations at Gallagher said: “Insurance allows commerce to continue and businesses to provide essential services to local communities. A hospitalization cover at this time will give confidence to those who are challenged by travel restrictions and lockdown.’’

To allow operations of factories and essential services during the lockdown, Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), in a circular dated 15 April 2020 released revised guidelines mandating health insurance cover for all workers. This has been followed by a circular from the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI) advising insurers to provide group and individual insurance cover, with simple wordings and conditions.

Edelweiss-Gallagher was formed through a minority stake acquisition in Edelweiss Insurance Brokers Limited (EIBL) by Gallagher, in May 2019. Supported by a network of Sub-Brokers and Authorised Persons, the Group has strategic presence across all major cities and business hubs in India. EIBL is a subsidiary of Edelweiss Financial Services Limited, serving more than 1.2 million clients through a network of over 450 offices and 10,000 employees. Press release: here

Gallagher provides specialist insurance advisory capability in the Asian region from its Singapore regional hub, offering expertise in a range of commercial risks including construction, energy, marine & cargo, media & entertainment, property and trade credit & political risk. Our office has specialists that can assist you with all of your commercial insurance or benefits and HR consulting needs. 

About Edelweiss Financial Services

The Edelweiss Group is one of India's leading diversified financial services companies, providing a broad range of financial products and services to a substantial and diversified client base that includes corporations, institutions and individuals. Edelweiss's products and services span multiple asset classes and consumer segments across domestic and global geographies. Its businesses are broadly divided into Edelweiss Global Investment Advisors (Wealth Management, Capital Markets, Asset Management and Asset Reconstruction), Credit (Retail Credit comprises of Retail Mortgage, SME and Business Loans, ESOP and Margin Financing, Agriculture and Rural Finance and Corporate Credit comprises of Structured Collateralized Credit to Corporates and Wholesale Mortgages) and Insurance (Life and General Insurance). Edelweiss has a Balance Sheet of INR 48,193 Cr, as of 31st December, 2019. The Group had revenues of INR 11,165 Cr. and PAT of INR 995 Cr. for FY19. 

The group’s research driven approach and proven history of innovation has enabled it to foster strong relationships across all client segments. The group has sizeable presence in the large retail segment, through its businesses such as Life Insurance, Housing Finance, Mutual Fund and Retail Financial Markets. Together with strong network of Sub-Brokers and Authorized Persons, Edelweiss group has presence across all major cities in India. 

Edelweiss Asset Management Company Partners with Signzy for Digital Customer Onboarding and Verification

Edelweiss Asset Management Company, one of the fastest growing AMCs, today announced that it has partnered with India’s leading RegTech startup (which manages regulatory processes in the BFSI sector through technology) Signzy for digital customer onboarding and a faster verification process on its investment platform.

Under this partnership, Signzy’s AI-led e-KYC solution has been deployed to allow all new Edelweiss customers to conduct seamless digital KYC, biometric enabled digital contracts and due diligence through Algorithmic Risk Intelligence for their mutual fund investments.

Ankit Ratan, co-founder of Signzy, says, “We are thrilled to be chosen by Edelweiss to support their new customer onboarding using Signzy’s industry-leading e-KYC solution. For the BFSI industry, new customer onboarding can involve significant time and cost expenditure. Our e-KYC solution is designed to mitigate these costs while simultaneously delivering much superior customer experience, which allows our clients to grow their business through frictionless new customer onboarding.”

Radhika Gupta, CEO, Edelweiss Asset Management, said, “Despite heightened interest from investors who are new to Mutual Funds, the cumbersome offline process of KYC becomes a barrier in on-boarding potential investors. Signzy’s eKYC solution and our digital processes overcomes this challenge, it helps investors to complete their KYC online and immediately invest in our Mutual Funds from comfort of their home. This facility offers new investors a platform with compliant processes, quick on-boarding and a happy investing experience; thereby also significantly reducing our costs.”

The partnership with Singzy will also help Edelweiss AMC to reach a wider set of customers because of its ease of access to the mutual fund platform, and work towards deepening the market for mutual funds in India.

About Signzy Mumbai-based Signzy is a leading provider of AI-based digitalization and automation solutions to the BFSI industry and counts globally leading banks and NBFCs (Non-Banking Financial Companies) as its clients, including Mastercard, ICICI Bank, State Bank of India and many more.

About Edelweiss Asset Management Limited (EAML): EAML is amongst the fastest growing asset management companies, being an asset management subsidiary of Edelweiss Financial Services Ltd., one of India’s leading financial services group since last 21 years with a proven track record of quality and innovation. EAML has witnessed growth of over 46% in Average Assets under Management (AAUM) in last one year.