US-based software company Ebix Inc on Wednesday announced the acquisition of online travel service provider Yatra for $336 million.

With the merger, each ordinary share of Yatra will be entitled to receive 0.005 shares of a new class of preferred stock of Ebix. Each share of Ebix convertible preferred stock received for each Yatra ordinary share will, in turn, be convertible into 20 shares of common stock of Ebix.

Atlanta-based Ebix, which makes software for the insurance, financial, healthcare industries, will be issuing 243,747 convertible preferred stock, which in turn will be convertible into 4,874,931 shares of Ebix common stock.

Robin Raina, Ebix chairman, president and CEO, said, "Over the last few months, we have evolved a detailed synergistic plan, that once fully executed can provide between 40 to 75 cents of accretion to the Ebix non-GAAP EPS. We are excited by the cross-selling opportunities that this combination provides us while further strengthening our future EbixCash IPO offering.”

"We are pleased to announce this agreement with Ebix, which provides our shareholders with the opportunity to participate in the significant upside potential of one of the fastest-growing multinational On-Demand software and ecommerce service companies in the world,” said Dhruv Shringi, co-founder and CEO of YatraOnline.

Earlier, Yatra had confirmed that it was reviewing Ebix's proposal to acquire all outstanding shares of the company. Citi Group Global Markets Inc was the financial advisor and Goodwin Procter LLP was the legal counsel.

The merged entity is going to 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 and visa services, among other things all under one roof, the company claimed.

Yatra is capable of generating revenues upwards of $150 million per year with over 30 percent operating margins on a post-closing basis, within 6 months of the acquisition, according to Ebix.

First Published:Jul 17, 2019 4:55 PM IST