World Bank's IFC to offload 1.8% stake in Bandhan Bank through IPO

At present, the International Finance Corporation holds about 4.9% stake in Bandhan Bank

International Finance Corporation, a part of World Bank group, will offload about 1.8 per cent stake in the proposed initial public offering (IPO) of Bandhan Bank.

The bank has filed a Draft Red Herring Prospectus (DRHP) with the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) for its proposed IPO of around 119,280,494 equity shares having a face value of Rs 10 each.

At present, IFC holds about 4.9 per cent stake in Bandhan Bank. Notably, other investors will hold on to their stakes in the bank, informed C S Ghosh, managing director, Bandhan Bank. Some of the other investors at Bandhan Bank include Small Industries Development Bank of India (Sidbi), Caladium Investment Pte. Ltd. (a company managed by GIC Special Investments Private Limited) and Bandhan Employees Welfare Trust.

"As of now, we are well capitalised, and our capital adequacy ratio is close to 26 per cent. The IPO is mainly for regulatory compliance," said Ghosh.

Bandhan Bank will complete three years of operation in August this year, and according to Reserve Bank of India mandate, it needs to file and IPO within three years of operation.

The IPO consists of a fresh issue of up to 97,663,910 equity shares and an offer for sale of up to 14,050,780 equity shares by IFC and up to 7,565,804 equity shares by IFC FIG Investment Company.

The book running lead managers to the Issue are Kotak Mahindra Capital Company Limited, Axis Capital Limited, Goldman Sachs (India) Securities Private Limited, JM Financial Institutional Securities Limited and JP Morgan India Private Limited.

Bandhan Bank had reported an over 18 per cent rise in net profit for the second quarter of this financial year Rs 3.31 billion. The lender's net profit was Rs 2.80 billion in the same period last financial year. Gross NPAs rose to 1.26 per cent in Q2 FY18; while net NPAs stood at 0.67 per cent.