TBM Staff - Mumbai Ebix Inc. has completed its Chapter 11 restructuring process, and emerged as a financially and operationally stronger company. The 12,000+ employee company is now debt-free worldwide.
On Friday, 30 August 2024, Ebix exited Chapter 11 in a period of less than 9 months, and the restructuring plan blessed by the US courts became effective. Earlier, on August 2, 2024 the Court had confirmed the plan.
This complex, cross-border matter resolution involved Sidley lawyers and staff from the New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Century City, Houston, Dallas, Washington, D.C., San Francisco, London, Singapore, and Hong Kong offices; besides professionals from multiple multinational accounting and investment banking firms.
Ebix is one of the few rare companies that entered Chapter 11 with a trailing 12-month Ebitda of approximately USD 145 million, on account of non-operating loans being called by its lenders.
With 23-years of consistently profitable results and a shareholder return of 27,500 per cent at one time, Ebix entry into Chapter 11 on non-operating grounds was sudden and rather unexpected. Today, when Ebix has exited Chapter 11, it has reason to feel confident about its future on various grounds –
• Consolidation into Eraaya – With Eraaya LifeSpaces Limited emerging as the successful plan sponsor, Ebix Inc worldwide results will now be consolidated into Eraaya, a publicly traded company on the Bombay Stock Exchange. Ebix will continue to be a US domiciled company, following the laws of the respective international geographies it operates in. Eraaya’s investment into Ebix will not affect any of Ebix’s responsibilities adversely in any geography, as the Company will continue to operate as usual.
Ebix Founder, Robin Raina, will continue to serve as CEO and Chairman of Ebix. A visionary entrepreneur who is the brain behind the Ebix worldwide franchise, Robin Raina has pioneered innovative concepts that propelled Ebix to be featured five times on Fortune’s 100 Fastest Growing Companies list. With a 23-year track record of profitability and delivering over 275x shareholder return at one time, Raina epitomises consistent financial discipline.
Integrated Group Vision – With the goal of ensuring maximisation of shareholder return for Eraaya shareholders, and to deliver world class compliance and consistent growth & profitability, Robin Raina has also been appointed as the Chairman of the Board for Eraaya.
Ebix, Inc will continue to be a US Company. All US contracts will continue to be serviced from the US company, with no changes to the Company’s tax ID, workers compensation or clients’ agreements, that will continue to be serviced following US law as usual.
Ebix’s international subsidiaries across the world that service clients in more than 75 countries today, will continue to operate as usual. Ebix’s entire international senior management that has spearheaded Ebix’s growth and profitability story for more than two decades, will continue as usual and will lead Ebix through its future growth.
All international client agreements will continue to be serviced as such, following the existing client and partner agreements under the laws of the respective country, while being serviced by the same Ebix personnel who have always been interacting with clients, as usual.
Ebix’s Indian EbixCash operations will continue as usual. With a “Phygital” strategy that combines over 650,000 physical distribution outlets in India and many Southeast Asian Nations, to an Omni-channel online digital platform, the Company’s EbixCash Financial exchange portfolio of software and services encompasses domestic and international money remittance, foreign exchange (Forex), travel, prepaid gift cards, utility payments, lending and wealth management across 75+ countries including India.
EbixCash’s Forex operations are carried out primarily through 82 retail branches, retail kiosks in 28 international airports, including Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Chennai and Kolkata, 12 seaports, over 250 franchise partners across 69 cities, as well as offered through more than 1200 corporate clients, more than 27 bank clients, and 5-star hotels in India. EbixCash, through its travel portfolio of Via and Mercury, is also one of the leading non-bank travel exchanges based in India and catering to approximately 517,000 agents and approximately 17,900 registered corporate clients.
EbixCash’s financial technologies business offers software solutions at the enterprise level for banks, asset and wealth management companies and trust companies across 75+ countries. EbixCash’s Bus Exchange business delivers on-Demand technology solutions to power information technology across 14+ state roadways corporations and tens of thousands of buses. EbixCash’s business process outsourcing services provide information technology and call centre services to a variety of industries.
Ebix has already secured investments from marquee US investors Watch Hill Capital and Melanie Lane Partner Series. The intent of Eraaya and Ebix is to continue to grow its international investor base.
Ebix CEO and Chairman, Robin Raina said, “Today marks a significant milestone in Ebix’s 48-year history. Through the relentless efforts of our team of advisors and employees worldwide, we are moving forward in an incredibly strong market position with an exciting road ahead of us. Now with a solid financial foundation, a leaner, more efficient operating model, and plans to raise more liquidity to invest in our business, Ebix has outstanding potential to drive long-term profitable growth. Both in the U.S. and around the world, we are poised to capitalise on our industry leadership, deep operational expertise and our iconic global brand.”
Raina said, “Ebix 2.0 intends to be lean, efficient, and focused on consistent profitable growth. We are aware that our strength is our focus on pioneering world leading on-Demand software Exchanges, our distribution reach, our understanding of worldwide regulations, our dominance in various sectors in specific geographies and the barriers to entry in the highly regulated sectors that we operate in. We intend to leverage all these strengths while continuing to deliver world-class services to our clients worldwide.”
He added, “I am quite confident that this is only the beginning phase of delivering even greater value to our stakeholders. Thank you to the Ebix team around the world and to our new investor group, and to our customers, franchisees, providers and partners for your confidence and support during this process. I must add that as the Eraaya Chairman, I am equally committed to delivering consistent profitability, growth and shareholder return to the Eraaya investor base also.”
