IOB managing director Ajay Kumar Srivastava Wednesday said the bank has received all the required approvals for the qualified institutional placement and is now in the process of appointing merchant bankers for the sale.
“We may be raising the capital next month or March depending on the market condition,” he said.
This will help the bank reduce the government holding by another 4% from the current level of 92.4%, the MD said. The bank’s promoter holding came down in December from 94.6% as the government diluted 2.2% in the Chennai-headquartered lender through an offer-for-sale.
Srivastava however said that the bank is likely to miss the August deadline to raise the public holding to the minimum 25% level. “It will be difficult by August 2026,” he said.
IOB’s capital adequacy ratio stood at 16.30% at the end of December.
Punjab & Sind Bank, on the other hand, will hold an extraordinary general meeting on January 21 to consider and approve raising of equity capital up to Rs 3000 crore by way of QIP.The bank plans the QIP to meet the capital requirement for its growing business as well as to comply with the Basel-III norms and to comply with the minimum public shareholding requirement, it had said in a stock exchange notice on December 30.
Punjab & Sind Bank reported a 15% on-year growth in advances to Rs 1.11 lakh crore. The government holds 93.9% in the bank.
The government holding also remains above the regulatory cap in Central Bank of India (89.3%) and Uco Bank (91%). The Securities & Exchange Board of India told public sector banks to comply with the minimum 25% public holding norm by August this year while public sector units are known to get extensions on a regular basis.