HDFC Bank completes Rs 9,553 cr stake sale in education unit HDFC Credila

Central bank had asked private lender to reduce its shareholding in HDFC Credila

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HDFC Bank has completed selling a majority of its stake in HDFC Credila, an education finance subsidiary, for Rs 9,553 crore to private equity firms BPEA EQT and ChrysCapital.

HDFC Credila will no longer be an arm of the bank. "HDFC Bank has, as of March 19, 2024, sold 14,01,72,180 equity shares of HDFC Credila to the acquirers," said the lender in an exchange filing on Wednesday night.

The acquirers of HDFC Credila include Kopvoorn BV, Moss Investments, Defati Investments Holding B V and Infinity Partners. HDFC Bank will maintain a 9.99 per cent stake in HDFC Credila.

The Reserve Bank of India, in April 2023, had asked HDFC Bank to reduce its shareholding in Credila to 10 per cent within two years of the lender’s merger with the erstwhile HDFC Ltd.

HDFC Credila was sold due to multiple regulatory approvals needed to complete the merger and the subsidiary was "not worth the effort", said Deepak Parekh, former chairman of HDFC, at the Global Fintech Fest 2023.

"To merge assets worth Rs 15,000 crore with assets of Rs 25 lakh crore (Rs 25 trillion) would take the same one year with a multiplicity of approvals, and it was not worth the effort. This is better. Banks start giving educational loans directly and make some money out of it," Parekh said.

The exchange filing comes ahead of HDFC Bank's earnings declaration for the last quarter of Financial Year 2023-24 (FY24), scheduled for April 20, 2024.

In the previous September-December quarter of FY24, HDFC Bank made a net profit of Rs 16,373 crore. Its net interest income stood at Rs 28,471 crore for the period.