Chhavideep Singh
Source: FinTech Futures –
State-owned Punjab National Bank is one of the largest banking providers in India that offers personal, social, international, corporate and agricultural banking facilities. Recently, PNB has announced to raise up to INR 3,200 crore from share sale during this present quarter of Financial Year 2021 – 2022.
According to a report by India TV, the bank has planned to raise this amount in order to enhance its capital grounds. The state-owned corporation has been on a fund-raising spree since the last quarter of Financial Year 2020 i.e., from December.
In December 2020, Punjab National Bank raised funds worth INR 3,788 crore from QIP ( Qualified Institutional Placement ). Following this fund raise, the report mentioned that the state holding in the bank reduced from 85.59% to 76.87%.
S S Mallikarjuna Rao, Managing Director at Punjab National Bank states that the corporation has already raised INR 4,000 crore from Tier-II and INR 3,788 crore through Qualified Institutional Placement till the end of December 2020. He further added taking additional AT-1 of INR 500 crore in the month of January. Furthermore, he also said that he was confident to raise the remaining INR 2,500 crore of under AT-1 bonds from the market before March 31, 2021.
As mentioned in a report by India TV, S S Rao also mentioned in a statement to the media that the bank is actively considering going for another Qualified Institutional Placement with respect to raising the remaining amount of INR 3,200 crore that is to be acquired from the market at the right time. He concluded his statement by saying that the appropriate time could be this current Financial Year as well.
Reportedly, Punjab National Bank has also taken approval to raise INR 14,000 crore through a mixture of debt and equity. The bank had earlier planned to raise INR 3,000 crore from Additional Tier-I bonds, INR 4,000 crore from Additional Tier-II bonds and INR 7,000 crore through Qualified Institutional Placement, as mentioned in the report by India TV.
Furthermore, Punjab National Bank is in planning to raise another INR 500 crore from sale of real assets by the month of June 2021. S S Rao mentioned in a statement that the bank has sold some of its non-core assets which also includes selling off its holding in UTI mutual funds.
However, the bank has been recording continuous profits since last quarter of Financial Year 2020 and most recently, it has announced to have recorded INR 506 crore profit in Quarter 3 with total income at INR 23,298.53 crore in December 2020-2021.