Staff Reporter –
IDFC FIRST Bank has laid a robust foundation with a strong and profitable business model. The Bank is seeing strong traction in raising deposits with customer deposits growing by 42% in FY24 over FY23. The Bank also sees significant upcoming opportunities for loan growth with high asset quality. The overall asset quality of the Bank continues to be good, with GNPA of 1.88% and NNPA of 0.60% as of March 31, 2024. In the retail, rural and sme finance book, the Gross and Net NPA continues to be quite low at 1.38% and 0.44% respectively as of March 31, 2024.
The Bank is also well positioned in terms of experience, team, technology, systems, risk management and controls, to take advantage of the growth opportunities in a stable manner. The business is also profitable with the profit after tax increasing to ₹ 2,957 crores in FY24, an increase of 21% over ₹ 2,437 crores in FY23. The capital adequacy as of March 31, 2024 is strong at 16.11%. With the objective to take advantage of upcoming growth opportunities, the Bank intends to raise funds of ₹ 3,200 crores by issuing equity shares of the Bank on preferential basis. With this proposed capital raise of ₹ 3,200 crores, the overall capital adequacy of the Bank will further increase to 17.49%, as computed on the risk weighted assets as on March 31, 2024, which will put the bank in a strong position to participate in future growth.
With the aforesaid intention, the Board of Directors (“Board”) of the Bank at its meeting held today i.e., May 30, 2024, has, inter-alia, considered and approved to Issue, offer and allot 39,68,74,600 (Thirty nine crore sixty eight lakhs seventy four thousand and six hundred) equity shares of face value of ₹ 10/- each fully paid-up, on a preferential basis, to the allottees, as mentioned in Annexure 1 (“Proposed Allottees”), at a price of ₹ 80.63/- per equity share, amounting to ₹ 3,200 crore (Rupees Three thousand and two hundred crore only) [round off] (“Preferential Issue”), in accordance with the applicable provisions of the Companies Act, 2013 and SEBI ICDR Regulations, and also subject to approval of the shareholders of the ‘Bank’.
Further, the Board of Directors of the Bank has approved a process of carrying out Postal Ballot to seek approval of the shareholders of the Bank for issuance and allotment of equity shares by way of preferential issue to the Proposed Allottees. Also, the Board has approved the draft Postal Ballot Notice to be issued to the shareholders for seeking their approval for Preferential Issue.
Post allotment, the issued and paid-up equity share capital of the Bank will increase from 7,07,72,76,843 equity shares of ₹ 10/- each fully paid-up to 7,47,41,51,443 fully paid-up equity shares of ₹ 10/- each.
