Central Bank of India on Thursday sought bids for its 4% stake in Clearing Corporation of India (CCIL) to raise at least Rs 120 crore. Bank of Baroda (BoB) is reported to have agreed to sell a similar stake to HDFC Bank for Rs 124 crore earlier this month. “The direct shareholding of the prospective buyer at no point of time should exceed 10% of the paid-up equity share capital of the company,” Central Bank said in a sale document. “Further, the shareholding of the prospective buyer, together with the shareholding of its holding, subsidiary or associate companies at no point of time should exceed 15% of the paid-up equity share capital of the company.”
At the end of March 2018, SBI was the largest shareholder in CCIL, with a 16.8% stake, down from 21.2% a year ago. LIC and STCI Finance follow, with a 10% stake each. IDBI Bank reduced its stake to 2.5% from 7.5% between March 2017 and March 2018. ICICI Bank upped its stake in the securities clearing firm to 9.9% from 5.5% over the same period. In May, IDBI Bank put on sale its residual 2.5% stake in CCIL.
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Both IDBI and Central Bank are currently under RBI’s prompt corrective action framework, which entails strict curbs on business growth and capital consumption. As a result, they have resorted to sale of non-core assets to monetise their assets. In March, Central Bank had put on the block a 3.11% stake in JM Financial Asset Reconstruction Company. Thereafter, in August, it had decided to carry out a premature buyback of its upper tier-II bonds and innovative perpetual debt instruments worth Rs 3,024 crore.