Uco Bank raises Rs 150 cr to shore up cap-ad ratio

Kolkata, Jan 7: The city-based Uco Bank, which has gone in for another round of tier-II capital, to improve its capital adequacy ratio (CAR), has raised Rs 150 crore in the just closed issue.

Bank officials said they had to go in for second round of tier-II capital after the finance ministry refused to allot funds for recapitalisation.
The issue with a greenshoe option, which opened in the third week of December, 2001, and closed on January 5 this year, was oversubscribed by ‘substantial amount’, officials claimed.

They claimed that the bank was doing extremely well and was well on the path of coming out with a public issue. "We will be going for public issue," the official said.

The bank had gone in for tier-II capital in the year 2000 as well and at that time also had raised Rs 150 crore. "The last issue was subscribed only to the extent of Rs 150 crore and there was no oversubscription," he said.

Incidentally, Uco Bank had recorded a hefty 288.57 per cent jump in net profit at Rs 136 crore during the first half of 2001-2002 compared to Rs 35 crore in the corresponding period of previous fiscal.

Operating profit had shot up by 132.94 per cent to Rs 198 crore during the period from Rs 85 crore last year and the profit has been arrived at even after making provisions for VRS as well as partial arrear wages.

Uco’s total volume of business surpassed Rs 35,000 crore during the first half of current fiscal, recording a growth of about 25 per cent and deposits increased by 21.87 per cent to Rs 23,706 crore from Rs 19,452 crore, while advances grew to Rs 11,679 crore from Rs 8,961 crore.

The bank has added business of about Rs 3,150 crore during the first half of 2001-02 and credit disbursal through retail banking stood at Rs 700 crore.

Uco Bank, which is proposing to start integrated treasury soon, has chalked out an ambitious plans for the future and to ensure retention and expansion of business in the highly competitive environment.

"We will spend Rs 250 crore to provide modern IT-related services, including centralised core banking solutions with networking of 200 top business branches, Internet banking, ATM and tele-banking among others," the official said.

— PTI