Yes Bank climbs after ICRA upgrades ratings on debt instrument

Yes Bank rose 2.67% to Rs 15 after domestic credit rating agency ICRA on Friday upgraded its ratings assigned to various debt instruments of the private lender.

The rating agency has upgraded Infrastructure bonds and Basel II compliant lower tier II bonds to BBB (Stable) from BB+ (Rating watch). Basel III compliant tier II bonds were upgraded to BBB- from BB. Basel II compliant tier I bonds and upper tier-II bonds were upgraded to BB+ (Stable) from a default (D) rating, Yes Bank said in a filing.

ICRA said the rating upgrade factors in the sizeable capital raise of Rs 15,000 crore in July 2020, which has resulted in an improvement in the capital ratios of Yes Bank. The ratios are now comfortably above the regulatory levels. The capital raise follows the Government-approved reconstruction scheme implemented in Q4 March 2020, under which equity capital of Rs 10,000 crore from SBI and other domestic institutions was infused into the bank. The rating upgrade also factors in the improvement in the bank's liquidity position after the stability and subsequent increase in its deposit base.

While the improvement in the capital position remains a key positive for the bank, the Covid-19-induced stress on the residual corporate book as on 30 June 2020 (~5% of standard advances were overdue) are likely to keep the credit costs at elevated levels in the near term. The management has guided towards a slippage of ~5% in FY2021. Despite having the flexibility to restructure loans, ICRA estimates that the slippages and credit costs will remain high in a stress scenario.

Yes Bank has fully repaid Rs 50,000 crore towards the Special Liquidity Facility (SLF) extended by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), well before the due date.

Shares of Yes Bank rallied for third consecutive trading session. The counter has gained 9.7% in last three trading sessions from its previous closing low of Rs 13.67 posted on 9 September 2020.

The bank's net profit tumbled 60.1% to Rs 45 crore in Q1 FY21 from Rs 114 crore in Q1 FY20. However, the bank has returned to profitability after reporting loss in the past three quarters. It had reported a net loss of Rs 3,668 crore in Q4 FY20. Total income of the bank fell 32.8% on a year-on-year (YoY) basis to Rs 6,106.74 crore in the June 2020 quarter. Net Interest Margin (NIM) stood at 3% in Q1 FY21 as against 2.8% in Q1 FY20.

The bank was under moratorium for 13 days in March 2020. It resumed full-fledged banking operations from 18 March 2020. This came after a consortium of eight public and private banks, led by State Bank of India, agreed to infuse capital into Yes Bank to rescue it from the brink of a collapse. These financial institutions had together pooled in Rs 10,000 crore as investment at Rs 10 per share in Yes Bank when it faced pressure from depositors.

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