‘Next round capital raise to reduce govt holding’
Total Basel III Capital adequacy ratio stood at 18.71%
image for illustrative purpose
New Delhi: Bank of Maharashtra (BoM) on Thursday said the next round of capital raise is expected to bring down the government holding in the state-owned bank below 75 per cent, a top bank official said.
With the dilution of government holding below 75 per cent, the bank would meet Sebi’s minimum public shareholding (MPS) norms. At present, the Government of India’s holding in the Pune-based bank is 79.6 per cent. It came down from 86.46 per cent at the end of September with a capital raise of Rs3,500 crore through Qualified Institutional Placements (QIP) on October 5, 2024. “Going forward, the bank has plans to raise further capital to meet minimum public shareholding norms.
Hopefully, the next tranche of QIP or other mode that would be decided at an appropriate time, the bank will meet the regulatory requirement,” BoM Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer Nidhu Saxena said during a media interaction. On the timeline for capital raise, he said this quarter looks slightly difficult as just two-and-a-half months are left in this fiscal. So, the next financial year is what seems feasible for the capital raising as the bank is sitting on a handsome Capital Adequacy Ratio, he added. Total Basel III Capital adequacy ratio stood at 18.71 per cent with Common Equity Tier 1 ratio of 13.60 per cent at the end of December 2024. In the last QIP, he said, the bank got good response from both domestic and international investors and raising about Rs2,500 crore would not be a challenge for the bank which has performed consistently. Meanwhile, BoM posted a 36 per cent rise in net profit to Rs1,406 crore in the third quarter ended December 2024 against Rs1,036 crore in the October-December period a year ago.
Total income increased to Rs7,112 crore during the quarter under review against Rs5,851 crore in the same period previous year. The bank earned an interest income of Rs6,325 crore during the quarter compared to Rs5,171 crore a year ago. Net Interest Income (NII) grew by 19.37 per cent to Rs2,943 crore in Q3FY25 over Rs2,466 crore for Q3FY24.
The bank was able to reduce gross Non-Performing Assets (NPAs) to 1.80 per cent of the gross loans by the endof December 2024 from 2.04 per cent in the year-ago period. Similarly, net NPAs or bad loans came down to 0.2 per cent from 0.22 per cent at the end of the third quarter of the previous fiscal. The Provision Coverage Ratio (PCR) as of December 31, 2024, is 98.28 per cent.
