Hdfc Bank Pens Rs 120 Crore Capex Plan

HDFC Bank is planning to invest Rs 120 crore on capital expenditure in the current financial year. The bank has already invested Rs 200 crore in capital expenditure since March 31,1998.

The bank plans to invest Rs 63 crore in technology, Rs 23.7 crore to expand the branch network by another 20 branches and extension counters and Rs 33.5 crore to install another 200 ATMs.

As on March 31, 2001, the bank had entered into capital commitments worth Rs 26.92 crore, which it proposes to fund through internal accruals and through the proceedings from the recently launched American depositary shares (ADS) issue.

The bank will use the ADS proceeds for also reducing the use of overnight borrowings as funding source and also for funding the future growth.

The bank, in its prospectus for the ADS issue, has said that its business could suffer if there was a prolonged or significant downturn in the stock market.

As on March 31, 2001, the bank loaned Rs 174.8 crore to Indian and foreign institutional share brokers.

Its retail loans against shares were to the tune of at Rs 319.34 crore, while the margin guarantees stood at Rs 647.26 crore.

The loans to the stock brokers and retail loans were at 2.3 per cent and 4.3 per cent of the total loans and credit substitute portfolio.

The bank said its relationship with the HDFC group companies may cause it not to offer products and services such as housing loans offered by them. It added that it may effectively prevent them from taking advantage of business opportunities.

As on March 31, 2001, the bank's major revenues (44.1 per cent), were through retail banking. The remaining earnings are through whole-sale banking (43.4 per cent) and treasury operations (12.5 per cent).

After the ADS issue, the holding of HDFC in the bank has come down to 24.8 per cent from 28.3 per cent.

Other major institutional stake holders in the bank are Chase group 11.7 per cent (13.4 per cent) and Bennett and Coleman group 7.4 per cent (8.4 per cent).