Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas & Co. advises Paul Merchants on sale of gold loan business to L&T Finance Limited in USD 61.3 million

April 10, 2025

Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas & Co. advised Paul Merchants Finance Limited (“transferor”), Paul Merchants Limited, Mr. Sat Paul Bansal, and Mr. Rajneesh Bansal (collectively referred to as the “Promoter Group”) on a business transfer agreement for the sale of its gold loan business to L&T Finance Limited (“transferee). The deal is valued at approximately USD 61.3 million and was signed on February 07, 2025.

This deal marks the entry of the transferee into the line of gold loan business and transferor’s exit from the same. It involved a business transfer between entities regulated by financial sector regulators such as the RBI and the SEBI. The deal was carefully structured, and the transaction documents were thoroughly negotiated to factor for various regulatory and commercial concerns that may arise on account of transfer of customers’ loan accounts, transfer of transferor’s branches, consultation rights during standstill period, non-compete and non-solicit restrictions on either parties, and indemnity obligations being undertaken by the transferor.

The transaction team was led by Zubin Mehta, Partner; Mohit Bhatia, Partner; Sneha Rao, Associate; and Siddharth Jasrotia, Associate.

The tax team was led by Gouri Puri, Partner; Rajat Bose, Partner; Rahul Yadav, Counsel; and Neeladri Chakrabarti, Consultant.

Naval Chopra, Partner gave his strategic inputs on the deal.

Manita Doshi, Partner; Aman Sethi, Partner; Harjas Singh, Senior Associate and Mouli Jain, Associate gave their inputs on the deal and transaction documents from securities and competition laws perspective.

AZB & Partners advised the transferee on the Indian legal aspects.