Affordable housing finance company Gruh Finance formally merged with private sector lender Bandhan Bank on Thursday, in accordance with the amalgamation scheme. Formerly, India’s largest mortgage lender HDFC Ltd was the promoter of Ahmedabad-based Gruh. The scheme of amalgamation of Gruh into and with Bandhan Bank was earlier approved by the National Company Law Tribunal’s Kolkata and Ahmedabad benches.
Shareholders of the Kolkata-headquartered bank had approved its proposed acquisition of Gruh Finance in July. About 99.36% shareholders of the lender, who had participated in the process, had voted in favour of the proposed “Scheme of Amalgamation”.
In a stock exchange filing on Thursday, the bank said, “In accordance with the scheme, the bank will issue and allot to those shareholders whose names would appear as a member in the records of the depositories/register of members of Gruh, as the case may be, on the record date, 568 fully paid-up equity shares of Rs 10 each of the bank, for every 1,000 fully paid-up equity shares of Rs 2 each, held by such member in Gruh.”
The bank’s board had fixed October 17 as the record date, on the effectiveness of the scheme, for the purpose of determining the shareholders of Gruh, who shall be entitled to receive the equity shares of the bank, as consideration pursuant to the scheme. As on June 30, Gruh Finance’s total outstanding loan portfolio was Rs 17,641.27 crore, up by over 11% y-o-y. Around 95% of the loans were retail and 45% of loans were at locations where population is less than 50,000.
