MC Exclusive: Pine Labs wins initial NCLT approval for merging Indian and Singapore entities, move base to India

Amrish Rau, CEO, Pine Labs

Pine Labs has secured its initial approval from the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) to merge its domestic and Singapore entities, according to the tribunal order reviewed by Moneycontrol.

This is a critical step for the Singapore-headquartered payments firm for shifting domicile back to India.

The 'first motion' plea, which was listed first on March 1, 2024, faced several adjournments before being approved on August 12, 2024.

With this approval, Pine Labs can now proceed to hold a stakeholders' meeting, where it needs to secure requisite votes in favor of the merger to move forward with the deal. After this, a second motion will be filed for final tribunal's approval.

"The meeting of the equity shareholders and unsecured creditors of the applicant company be convened as prayed for on 28th September, 2024 through video conferencing with the facility of remote e-voting, subject to notice of the meeting being issued.

"...With the aforesaid directions, this First Motion Application stands disposed of," the order read.  The company had previously received the approval from a Singapore court to shift its operations to India.

The latest order has set the balling rolling for Pine Labs which is among the major firms looking to move domicile to India. Per the order, the transfer is expected to help Pine Labs achieve business synergies and economies of scale.

"The amalgamation is expected to achieve more cost saving and and more focused operational efforts, rationalisation and standardisation of business processes by the way of consolidation of the group," it said.

(The story was updated to add more context and clarify the order)