YES Bank freezes at 5% upper circuit on payment of Rs 35,000 crore to RBI

Sunil Mehta said that the new board led by CEO Prashant Kumar was able to restore customer and depositor confidence after the RBI-imposed moratorium was lifted

YES Bank shares were locked in the upper circuit band of 5 per cent at Rs 15.78 on the BSE on Wednesday after the bank said it has paid Rs 35,000 crore, out of the Rs 50,000 crores of Special Liquidity Facility (SLF), that was extended to the bank to make up for any shortfall in deposits during the crisis in March this year.

"The Bank has, as of date repaid Rs 35,000 crore of SLF and the balance (Rs 15,000 crores) will be repaid within the timelines set by RBI," the bank’s Chairman Sunil Mehta noted in his message to shareholders.

Mehta added that the new board led by CEO Prashant Kumar was able to restore customer and depositor confidence after the RBI-imposed moratorium was lifted. "In addition to the Special Liquidity Facility of Rs 50,000 crore extended by RBI, the Bank has since then received strong customer liquidity inflows," he said.

RBI had first provided YES Bank with the special liquidity window when it was coming out of the moratorium imposed on it after the board was superseded in March this year. The SLF window was given for three months to ensure that the bank was covered for any large deposit withdrawals. 

The bank recently raised Rs 15,000 crore through FPO by issuing shares at the price of Rs 12 per share. It had stated in its prospectus that the funds raised via FPO will be used for growth and expansion including enhancing its solvency, capital adequacy ratio and evolving regulatory requirements.

In June quarter of FY21, the bank returned to profitability after reporting loss in the past three quarters. For Q1FY21, it reported 60 per cent de-growth in net profit at Rs 45 crore compared to Rs 114 crore posted in Q1FY20. It had reported a net loss of Rs 3,668 crore in Q4FY20. 

Total income of the bank fell 32.8 per cent on a year-on-year (YoY) basis to Rs 6,106.74 crore in the June 2020 quarter. On a quarter-on-quarter (QoQ) basis, it increased by 4.95 per cent from Rs 5,818.59 crore reported in March 2020 quarter.

The bank's provisions and contingencies fell 39.1 per cent to Rs 1,087 crore in Q1FY21 over Q1FY20. It consists of a Covid-19 related provisioning of Rs 642 crore.

Till 12:51 pm, 272.93 million shares had changed hands on the counter on the NSE and BSE till the time of writing of this report. So far in the month of August, the stock has rallied neaerly 26 per cent on the BSE, as against 2.4 per cent rise in the benchmark S&P BSE Sensex till Tuesday, BSE data show.