Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas advises Kotak Mahindra Bank on INR 537 Crore acquisition of Sonata Finance

Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas advised Kotak Mahindra Bank Limited (Kotak), in relation to the acquisition of Sonata Finance Private Limited (Sonata), a Non-Banking Finance Company – Micro Finance Institution registered with the Reserve Bank of India for an aggregate amount of Rs 537 crore (approx.).

The General Corporate, Finance, and Financial Regulatory Practices of Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas advised Kotak for the transaction.The transaction team was led by L.Viswanathan, Partner (Chair – Finance, Projects & Insolvency);Indranath Bishnu, Partner;Pranjita Barman, Partner;with support from Anirud Sudarsan R, Senior Associate; and Ayushi Agrawal, Associate.

The Due Diligence team was led by Pranjita Barman, Partner; with support from Anirud Sudarsan R, Senior Associate; Niyati Dholakia, Senior Associate; Soumyaditya Dasgupta, Associate; Ayushi Agrawal, Associate.

The employment team for the Due Diligence was led by Richa Mohanty Rao, Partner; withsupport from Ankita Sharma, Senior Associate;Luv Saggi, Senior Associate;and Anushka Dua Associate.

Bharath Reddy, Partner; with support from Sindhushri Badarinath, Director - General Corporate; and Sudipta Lenka, Associate; advised on acquisition of shares from employee shareholders of Sonata and the Sonata Employee Welfare Trust.

The Finance team led by Meeta Kurpad, Partner;with support from Kishan Kumar Gupta,Associate; advised on the Financing-related aspects (i.e., transfer/assignment of loans).

Ganesh Kumar, Consultant;and Lily VaderaConsultant; rendered advice on RBI-related aspects on the Proposed Transaction and incidental matters thereto.

As a part of the Transaction, Kotak has entered into share purchase agreements with the current shareholders of Sonata, to acquire 2,64,53,256 equity shares of Sonata, of face value Rs. 10 each fully paid up, for a total consideration of approximately Rs. 537 crores, constituting 100% of the issued and paid up capital of Sonata, on February 10, 2023 (“Proposed Transaction”). The Proposed Transaction has been approved by the Board of Directors of Kotak and Sonata and is subject to requisite approvals, including that of the Reserve Bank of India ("RBI").