Bank of Maharashtra plans to raise up to Rs 2,000 crore through QIP

State-run Bank of Maharashtra is looking to raise up to Rs 2,000 crore through qualified institutional placement (QIP) route before July-end, its Managing Director and CEO A S Rajeev said.

In April this year, the Pune-based lender had received board approval to raise Rs 5,000 crore by way of QIP/rights issue/ preferential issue or by issuing Basel III bonds.

"We are planning to raise around Rs 2,000 crore equity through QIP immediately. The process has already started and we will raise it before July-end,” Rajeev told PTI in an interaction.

The base size of the issue is Rs 1,000 crore and it has a greenshoe option of another Rs 1,000 crore, he said.

Following this equity raise, the government's holding in the bank will reduce to below 85 per cent from 94 per cent currently, and the capital adequacy ratio will improve to 17-18 per cent from around 14.49 per cent as of March 31, 2021, Rajeev said.

This fund will be deployed for expansion of the loan book, which the bank is looking to grow by 16-18 per cent to around Rs 1.25 lakh crore in this fiscal from Rs 1.08 lakh crore as of March 31, 2021, he said.

Of the total loan book of the bank at present, the share of corporate loans is 37 per cent and of retail, agriculture and MSME (RAM) segment is 63 per cent, he said adding, "We want the ratio of RAM to the corporate segment to be 65:35 during the current fiscal."

The bank is envisaging a 20-25 per cent growth in the retail, agriculture and MSME (RAM) segment this year.

The lender's corporate loan size is close to Rs 40,000 crore and it is targeting to grow it by another Rs 10,000 crore in this financial year. It has a sanction pipeline of Rs 25,000 crore in the corporate and MSME segments for the current fiscal, he said.

"We have churned our portfolio with improvement in the share of lending to better-rated corporates. This will minimise the delinquencies and attract lower capital requirement," Rajeev added.

In the corporate segment, the bank will continue lending to better-rated corporates, including sunrise sectors such as infrastructure, pharmaceuticals and FMCG, he said.

Under the government's Emergency Credit Line Guarantee Scheme (ECLGS), the bank's total disbursement, so far, is around Rs 2,100 crore, and it plans to lend another Rs 500 crore this year.

Rajeev said the bank's exposure to the healthcare sector is Rs 2,000-2,400 crore, which is 2 per cent of the total advances portfolio. In April and May, it had already disbursed over Rs 225 crore to the sector.

"We intend to double our portfolio under the healthcare sector and make it 4 per cent of our total advances portfolio during the current fiscal. We have also come out with two to three products in tune with the RBI policy," he said.

Last month, the RBI had announced an on-tap term liquidity facility of Rs 50,000 crore under which banks can provide fresh lending support to a wide range of entities from the healthcare segment.

The government has also announced ECLGS 4.0, under which a 100 per cent guarantee cover to loans up to Rs 2 crore will be provided to hospitals, nursing homes, clinics, medical colleges for setting up on-site oxygen generation plants.

Rajeev further said since the exit from the RBI's prompt corrective action (PCA) framework in January 2019, the lender has taken several steps to strengthen its balance sheet, which has resulted in a significant improvement in all its financial parameters.

"We have been successful in registering profits quarter on quarter since March 2019. Our net profit rose 41.39 per cent to Rs 550 crore during FY21 from Rs 389 crore in FY20. Operating profit also rose 39 per cent to Rs 3,958 crore in FY21 from Rs 2,847 crore last year," he said.

The bank's CASA (Current Account and Savings Account) improved to 54 per cent as of March 31, 2021, which according to Rajeev is one of the best in the banking industry.

The bank has also managed to bring its gross non-performing assets to 7.23 per cent as of March 31, 2021, from 18.64 per cent in September 2018, when it was under PCA. Net NPAs stood at 2.48 per cent as of March 31, 2021.

At present, market capitalisation of the bank stands at Rs 17,500 crore against Rs 3,948 crore as of March 2019, he said.

In FY22, the bank is targeting to bring down gross NPA to below 6 per cent and net NPA to below 2 per cent. Net interest margins (NIM) will remain above 3 per cent in this fiscal, he said.

It has set a recovery and upgradation target of Rs 2,500-2,600 crore during the current year. The lender is also expecting Rs 500 crore recovery from written-off accounts in this fiscal, Rajeev said.

The lender is looking at opening 200 banking outlets with a hub and spoke model in this fiscal, he added.