Govt to infuse Rs 6,000-crore in SBI via preferential issue: Chaudhuri

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The government has agreed to infuse fresh capital into State Bank of India through a preferential issue and the country's largest lender will be getting up to Rs 6,000 crore before the fiscal end, its chairman Pratip Chaudhuri said here on Wednesday.

"We will be having a preferential issue and will be getting capital through it," Chaudhuri told PTI when asked about the progress on its proposed recapitalisation.

When asked what could be quantum of the infusion, he said, "the size will be Rs 5,000 to Rs 6,000 crore."

However, he did not give any specific indication about the timing of the issue but said it will happen before March 31 SBI's total capital adequacy stood at 11.4 percent as of the September quarter, of which the core tier-I stood at 7.7 percent, below the 8 percent desired by the government.

It had first announced its intention to raise up to Rs 20,000 crore through a rights issue over an year ago, but the government, which holds 59.4 percent stake in the lender, has been postponing it as it will have to make subscribe almost two-thirds of the money.

For the past three months, the SBI brass has been realistically pegging the capital infusion size at around Rs 6,000 crore.

Last month, chief financial officer Diwakar Gupta had said an infusion may happen 'any time', while Chaudhuri had last week said he had received letter from the finance ministry on recapitalisation.

The recapitalisation will take the bank's tier-I to over 9 percent, he had said. A slew of lenders, including Bank of Baroda, Bank of Maharashtra and Union Bank have made similar announcements in the recent past. While Bank of Baroda would be getting Rs 775 crore this fiscal.

"As part of increasing its stake to the mandated 58 per cent, the government has agreed to pump in Rs 775 crore into the bank. The fund infusion will happen before the end of the fiscal," Bank of Baroda Chairman and Managing Director Mallya had told PTI last month end, adding this would be done by way of preferential issue.

Last year the government had pumped in Rs 2,675 crore (in March) into BoB thereby increasing its stake to 57.3 percent from 53 percent earlier. With the infusion of Rs 775 crore, the government ownership in the bank will touch the mandated 58 percent, Mallya added.

Bank of Maharashtra and Union Bank also said they would be recapitalised this fiscal by the government. While UBI head said it would get around Rs 280 crore, the BoM chairman had last week said he was asked to prepare for a preferential issue of around Rs 860 crore by North Block.

Last week, a finance ministry official had said the government would be pumping in Rs 17,000 crore into various stat-run banks this fiscal.

This makes the additional requirement of Rs 11,000 crore, which the official had said would be met through a supplementary demand.

The FY12 Budget had earmarked only Rs 6,000 crore for recapitalisation of state-run banks for the current fiscal.

The other banks which are likely to get fresh capital are IDBI Bank and Syndicate Bank among others.

In 2010-11, the government had provided capital support to worth Rs 20,157 crore to various public sector banks.

A committee headed by Finance Secretary RS Gujral is working out a strategy for capitalisation of public sector banks over a period of next 10 years to meet the Basel III requirements, under which the 26 state-run lenders would be needing Rs 3.6 lakh crore in fresh capital.