Indian Bank IPO likely to hit market

Kolkata, Dec 15: The long awaited Initial Public Offering (IPO) of public sector Indian Bank is likely to hit the market by next month after getting necessary clearance from the SEBI, Bank Chairman-cum-Managing Director K C Chakravarty said here today.

In an interactive session on Indian Bank growth dimension, Mr Chakravarty said red hearing prospectus for the IPO had already been filed and they were expecting to get the necessary clearance from the SEBI by the end of January.

Though he refused to say the total quantum of money to be raised through the IPO, it was expected that for this purpose the Bank might opt for Rs 900 crore, which is likely to dilute the 100 per cent government stake of the Bank by around 20 per cent.

Regarding the current business of the Bank, he said till date the overall business had crossed Rs 70,000 crore mark of which the deposit accounted for Rs 45,000 crore and the rate had gone to the credit portfolio.

He, however, was quite optimistic that the Bank would touch the Rs 100,000 crore business by March end next year.

He said the Bank presently had two overseas branches in Singapore and Colombo and was considering to apply to RBI for opening a few representative offices as well as full fledged branches elsewhere.

Regarding the credit portfolio of the Bank, he said though the retail credit had taken a backseat now following RBI guidelines to go slow towards funding real estate business, the Bank had put maximum stress on educational loan, which recorded about 90 per cent growth during the current fiscal.

Mr Chakravarty, however, ruled out immediate possibility of shifting the Bank's financial norms and said though right now they were not looking for any change he was in favour of changing it to the best of international norms.

UNI