SBI may hit market with Rs 15,000 cr issue by June

Instead of pumping money into PSU banks, the Budget this year has allowed them to bring down government stake to 51 per cent

The country's largest lender State Bank of India may hit the market by June with plans to raise Rs 15,000 crore (Rs 150 billion) through sale of shares.

While SBI is yet to formally decide on the timing of the share sale plan, the biggest ever by the state-run bank, merchant banking sources said that it might take place by June as the conditions are not seen to be very conducive at the moment.

When contacted, SBI deputy managing director and chief financial officer P K Gupta told PTI, "We have a one-year window starting March 1, 2015. We have not decided on the date."

In January, SBI had announced plans to raise up to Rs 15,000 crore through a public issue of shares. The fund raising routes will include follow-on offer, qualified institutional placement (QIP), rights issue, private placement, global depository receipts/American depository receipts or combination of all these.

The move followed the government reducing capital infusion to state-run banks and limiting it to just nine lenders, including SBI. The government had cut the fund infusion from Rs 11,000 crore (Rs 110 billion) budgeted last fiscal to Rs 6,990 crore (Rs 69.9 billion) and that too selectively, out of which SBI got Rs 2,970 crore (Rs 29.7 billion) in 2014-15.

Instead of pumping money into PSU banks, the Budget this year has allowed them to bring down government stake to 51 per cent, effectively telling them to raise capital from the markets.

SBI had said the funds raised would be used for business expansion as well as to meet the tighter capital adequacy norms.

Asked about media reports that SBI has deferred its fund raising plans to June from April, Gupta said, "It was never decided to raise funds in April. Right now, we are busy with our accounts."

In March, investment bankers had said the issue was likely in April but since then market has been very bad from the valuation point of view and SBI shares have tanked 8.5 per cent since February-end.

The stock on Friday fell 0.6 per cent to close at Rs 275.65 at the BSE.

The bank has appointed nine investment bankers – Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Barclays, Citi, Goldman Sachs, SBI Caps, Axis Capital, JM Financials, ICICI Securities and Kotak Mahindra Bank - for the exercise.

The bank had raised Rs 8,032 crore (Rs 80.32 billion) through QIP route in FY14.