Capital restructuring of UCO Bank soon - Goel

Bhubaneswar, Feb 8 (UNI) The capital restructuring of the UCO Bank will be placed before the Union Cabinet soon for approval, according to its Chairman-cum-Managing Director S K Goel.

Talking to newspersons here, Mr Goel said the government had already cleared the restructuring proposal, to be shortly placed before the Cabinet for its approval.

The Bank, he said, had proposed to reduce its equity shares from Rs 800 crore to Rs 500 crore to convert it into preferential shares.

The CMD said the Bank might come out with the proposal to raise Rs 490 crore through FPO some time in the next fiscal.

Mr Goel said, '' We would like the market to be stabilised first which in all likely to be taken place after the budget and we will wait till the budget to go for the FPO. '' To a question, he said the UCO Bank had projected a total business of Rs 1.40 lakh crore during 2008-2009 with a total deposit of Rs 80,000 crore and advances to the tune of Rs 60,000 crore.

He said as on December 31,2007, the total deposit of the Bank stood at Rs 72,402 crore, while the advance at Rs 49,802 crore showing a 16.13 per cent growth.

The Bank, Mr Goel said, was comfortably placed on the capital requirement with 11.57 per cent CAR rate as against the statutory requirement of nine per cent.

The UCO Bank Chairman-cum-Managing Director said to meet the future capital requirement the Bank might raise Rs 1200 crore which would lead to nearly 30 per cent growth.

He said while Rs 600 crore could be mopped up from the non-cumulative preferential capital of Tier I, another Rs 600 crore could be raised as Tier II capital.

Mr Goel, who met Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik at his Secretariat chamber, handed over Rs 50 lakh as donation to the Chief Minister's relief fund.

He assured the Chief Minister to extend all cooperation for the development of the state.

He said the CD ratio of the state, which stood at 71.63 per cent, would exceed 100 per cent as huge investment to the tune of Rs 5000 crore, raised in Mumbai by some big industrial houses, would be ultimately invested in the state.

In Orissa, he said the Bank had already advanced Rs 663.21 crore in Agriculture sector by December 2007 which would further rise by 20 per cent in the next fiscal.

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