Why Ebix Wants to Buy India's Corporate Travel Player Yatra for $336 Million

Ebix, a seller of software to insurance companies for four decades, has recently been expanding its presence in the travel sector, particularly in India. Yatra — a corporate travel services provider and India's second largest online travel agency after MakeMyTrip Group — said Tuesday it had begun doing due diligence to consider an offer from Ebix to take it private by mid-May for about $336 million. Ebix, a public company based in Johns Creek, Georgia, provides software to many sectors. Ebix sees Gurgaon-based Yatra as the largest of several companies it has recently acquired to build a group that cross-sells travel services like foreign exchange to corporate clients and consumers. Ebix aims to spin that travel subsidiary out. A New IPO? For full-year 2018, Ebix generated $497.8 million in revenue — a 37 percent rise year-over-year. However, its biggest segment is its foreign exchange unit. Ebix offers currency exchange through its subsidiary EbixCash, one of Southeast Asia’s travel money exchanges, with more than 110,000 distribution outlets and 8,000 corporate clients. The company forecasts the unit will generate about $350 million in revenue in 2019 on a stand-alone basis. Ebix said in a statement that it might merge Yatra with EbixCash, which already has 9,000-plus employees. "We see India as a multibillion-dollar opportunity, possibly in