Canara Bank starts hunt for acquisition

A day after meeting finance ministry officials to discuss the consolidation roadmap for public sector banks, Canara Bank today indicated that it would opt for acquisition to strengthen its presence in Gujarat, Haryana and Maharashtra.

“We have a deficient presence in Maharashtra, Haryana and Gujarat. We are looking at inorganic growth in these states,” said Chairman and Managing Director AC Mahajan.

“We have an internal team which will start due diligence of some potential targets. Later, we will appoint consultants from outside to take the process forward,” he added.

The chief of the country’s five largest nationalised banks, including Mahajan, had met finance ministry officials yesterday to discuss a possible merger roadmap.

“We were asked to give our views. It's an evolving process,” Mahajan told reporters on the sidelines of a function to mark the bank's 104th anniversary.

Other banks that were present in the discussion with Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee were Punjab National Bank, Bank of India, Bank of Baroda and Union Bank of India.

Mahajan is the third public sector bank chief to state his intent for an acquisition. On Saturday, Uco Bank Chairman and Managing Director SK Goel had said his bank was planning a blueprint to buy a smaller bank. “The bank is in informal talks with another public sector bank with a business of Rs 1,20,000 crore as we aim to have a business of Rs 3,00,000 crore over the next few years,” Goel told Business Standard. State Bank of India has already kicked off the consolidation exercise and has merged State Bank of Saurashtra with itself. It is in the process of merging another associate bank, State Bank of Indore, with itself. While the bank plans to merge the remaining five associate banks too, it will have take a case-by-case approval.