Ebix Offers to Acquire India’s Largest Corp. Travel Site

Ebix , an international supplier of on-demand software and e-commerce services to the insurance, financial, healthcare and e-learning industries, has announced its intentions to acquire Yatra Online. Keyword: intentions.

Gurugram-based Yatra Online is India’s leading corporate travel services provider with over 800 corporate customers and one of India’s leading online travel companies.

With the acquisition, Ebix plans to merge Yatra Online in its Indian EbixCash subsidiary set up. “We believe that Yatra Online’s products and services are complementary to EbixCash’s travel portfolio of Via and Mercury; and a combination of the two companies would lend itself to significant synergies and the creation of the India’s largest and most profitable travel services company. We see substantial synergies, economies of scale and expanded growth potential for the combined business. Our interest in making an offer for Yatra Online is also borne out of our firm belief that a combination of the two companies could be substantially and immediately accretive to Ebix’s EPS.” – Ebix Chairman, President and CEO Robin Raina (read: 50% Glassdoor approval rating).

Bottom Line: The merged entity would become one of India’s largest and most profitable end-to-end travel industry player in the insurance services industry, providing distribution, travel insurance, forex, MICE, Visa services, and travel technology services through its recent acquisition of Zillious.