Soon, even ships may go under the hammer in SBI e-auction

FOLLOWING its recent e-auction of around 300 properties in Mumbai, India's largest mortgage lender, State Bank of India (SBI) would even offer ships online in the future. The bank will soon study the analytical data on its recent e-auction.

"We have a small coastal transport ship in our inventory of seized recovered properties. Putting it on e-auction is also a good idea. We have earlier sold couple of ships in the traditional manner," a top SBI official was quoted as telling a new agency.

On March 14, SBI...

auctioned around 300 properties including residential, offices, shops and factory buildings) valued around Rs.1,200 crore online.

The e-auction, the first of its kind in the country, was conducted for the country's largest bank by Ahmedabad-based Auction Tiger, and properties were listed on the magicbricks.com website

One basic advantage of an e-auction over a regular offline one is that buyers can do the bidding in the comfort of their home or office. The process is more transparent and quicker. It also allows the seller, the bank in this case, to reach a wider audience.

"We are studying the data to see the efficiency in price discovery for properties sold online. The study is to see whether the online sale price is better or the offline price is better," Malhotra said.

He said the around 130 properties got sold for a sum of Rs.80-90 crore.

The auction got good response for the residential properties put on sale.

"The experience gained is good and we are also studying how we can share more information about the properties (mainly about industrial properties) so as to conclude the sale," Malhotra said.

He said the bank had received many queries about the water supply to the factories and the approach roads.

"If it is a local bidder, he would have done the survey before the auction. Our legal department has to see whether what additional information could be shared about the property without compromising on client confidentiality," Malhotra said.

Malhotra said the e-auction on the whole was satisfactory and it was a good experience to take it forward.

Other bankers too enquired in a friendly manner as to the e-auction modalities, he pointed out.