Public sector banks to raise Rs 16,000 cr from market

COUNTRY'S largest lender State Bank of India (SBI) and other PSU banks will raise over Rs 16,000 cr from market to meet their capital requirement.

The public sector lenders can raise Rs 1.60 lakh crore by reducing government stake to 52 percent.

Out of 27 PSBs, the government of India...

controls 22 through majority holding.

"The government has taken a decision to allow public sector banks to raise capital from market through follow-on-public offer (FPO) or qualified institutional placement (QIP) by diluting Government of India shareholding up to 52 percent in phased manner to meet their capital requirement," finance minister Arun Jaitley said in a reply to the Rajya Sabha.

The government has allowed SBI to raise Rs 15,000 crore and Oriental Bank of Commerce to mobilise Rs 1,000 crore from the market, the minister said.

Canara Bank will raise funds by offering four crore equity shares in market. A

t the current market price, the Bank would be able to raise about Rs 1,500 crore.

In the remaining five banks, state-run SBI holds majority stake.

In another reply, the minister mentioned that as many as 2,015 companies listed on the BSE and 263 on the NSE are yet to comply with market regulator SEBI's directive to appoint at least one woman director on the board.

Of the 5,305 companies listed on BSE, 3,290 companies have complied with and 2,015 companies or 38 percent have not complied with the norm as on April 16, he said.

Out of 1,624 companies listed on the NSE, 1,361 companies have complied, while 263 companies (or 16 percent) have not complied with SEBI's women director norm, he said. SEBI had issued guidelines in February 2014 asking companies to appoint at least one woman director on their boards by October 1, 2014, which was later relaxed to April 1, 2015.