Mumbai, March 7: Infrastructure Development Finance Company (IDFC) today acquired Standard Chartered’s Indian mutual fund arms, Standard Chartered Asset Management Company and Standard Chartered Trustee Company, for a cash consideration of about $205 million. The price was way above the offer made by UBS of $118 million.

The deal, which was under discussion for over a year and a half, reached fruition after UBS dropped out of the race in December. The transaction will be completed in the second quarter of 2008, but Standard Chartered will continue to handle the mutual fund distribution business.

“IDFC is a well-respected financial services company and we are delighted to have reached an agreement with them for the sale of this business. Standard Chartered will remain a distributor of asset management products in India, a key market that delivered record results in 2007,” said Jaspal Bindra, chief executive officer (Asia) of Standard Chartered.

Standard Chartered, based in the UK, had to discontinue talks with UBS on the sale of its Indian mutual fund business after the RBI refused to clear the agreement they had executed in January 2007.

The news that StanChart wanted to sell its Indian mutual fund business first broke in October 2006. There were 19 bidders in the race to take over Standard Chartered’s asset management business. In January 2007, UBS was shortlisted and the deal was valued at $118 million.

After the UBS deal failed to mature, Standard Chartered announced fresh bids that attracted 20 players.

A few weeks ago, there were only seven left in the field and the minimum bid price was fixed at $175 million against the base level of $137 million quoted by Standard Chartered.