BNP Paribas, an European Bank, is looking to completely exit from the Mumbai-based full service retail brokerage firm Sharekhan, market sources said. 

Three homegrown financial services’ biggies and a Japanese as well as a Korean firm are understood to have evinced interest to buy the 100 percent stake of BNP Paribas in Sharekhan, they added. There are atleast five players in the fray, it is learnt. 

Sharekhan was one of the first movers in the country’s online broking segment. It is currently among the top ten retail brokerage houses in the country.

Exiting India?

A BNP Paribas spokesperson on Tuesday declined to comment on the businessline’s email query on the status of the planned exit transaction from Sharekhan. It is understood that BNP Paribas does not want to continue to do retail business in India and hence its decision to exit Sharekhan. 

It maybe recalled that BNP Paibas had in January 2018 announced that it had completed its acquisition of brokerage firm Sharekhan, a deal that was first announced in 2015. The deal finally brought in foreign investments of little over ₹ 2,000 crore.

Prior to Sharekhan, BNP already held a 34 per cent stake in Geojit Financial. This stake was, however, sold in 2018.