Dena Bank on Tuesday put on sale 84 non-performing assets (NPAs) worth Rs 3,324 crore, inviting bids on full-cash basis or through a mix of cash and security receipts (SRs). “The expression of interest requires that prospective investors shall also make the following statements: (a) Subject to the due diligence review, the prospective investor intends to submit a bid for the NPA loan accounts being offered for sale by Dena Bank; (b) In undertaking the sale process, the prospective investor has no conflict of interest with and is not related, directly or indirectly, to Dena Bank/borrowers,” the public sector bank (PSB) said in a sale document.
E-bidding for the accounts will be held on November 29, and execution of the assignment agreements and fund transfer will take place in the second week of December. Dena Bank is set to be amalgamated with larger peers Bank of Baroda (BoB) and Vijaya Bank by the end of the current financial year. It is currently under the RBI’s prompt corrective action (PCA) framework and is the only lender to have been asked to freeze lending altogether.
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In order to boost cash recoveries and ease their provisioning burden arising from older NPAs, a number of banks have resorted to sale of NPAs to asset reconstruction companies. Last month, Bank of India (BoI) had put on sale NPAs worth Rs 10,710 crore, including its exposures to eight power projects and five accounts named on either of the RBI’s two lists.
This followed a similar bid by BoI to sell bad loans worth Rs 8,831 crore in September, including its exposures to Essar Steel, Bhushan Power and Steel and Alok Industries. All three accounts, part of the RBI’s first list of large NPAs, remained unresolved over a year since the list was issued amid several rounds of litigation.
In September, SBI had sought bids for eight NPAs worth Rs 3,948 crore on sale, including its exposures to Jai Balaji Industries, Ballarpur Industries and Rohit Ferro Tech. All eight assets were offered on a 100% cash basis.