RBL Bank board gives nod for raising ₹1,680 crore
The board of RBL Bank Ltd has approved raising of capital to the tune of ₹1,680 crore from a number of investors including Renuka Ramnath-led Multiples PE, UK’s development finance institution CDC and hedge fund Steadview Capital among others, the private sector lender said in a stock exchange filing on Friday.
CDC is an existing investor in RBL and held a 4.22% stake in the company as of March 31, data from stock exchanges shows. Multiples’ earlier bets in the financial services sector include South Indian Bank and Cholamandalam Investment and Finance Co Ltd.
RBL is raising the total from 10 investors. Others in the consortium include ABG Capital, Global IVY Ventures, HDFC Standard Life Insurance Co. Ltd, ICICI Lombard General Insurance Co. Ltd, LTR Focused Fund, Plenty CI Fund I and Plenty Private Equity Fund.
“The purpose of this capital raise is to augment the bank’s tier I capital for supporting the future organic growth of business as well as enabling the bank to capitalise on inorganic opportunities and for other general corporate purposes,” the filing said.
Funds will be raised through a preferential allotment of 32.62 million shares at ₹515 per share, according to the filing.
Shares of RBL Bank closed at ₹527.05 per share, up 0.38%, on the BSE on Friday, while the benchmark Sensex index closed almost flat at 31,360.63.
The transaction is subject to regulatory and shareholder approval. The bank has called its annual general meeting on August 4 to take shareholder approval for the fundraise.
RBL will be raising the latest round of capital at more than double the valuation at which the lender went public in August last year.
Since its debut on the secondary markets on August 31, 2016, RBL Bank’s shares have surged 134.6% from the issue price of ₹225 a share.
In its initial public offering the bank had raised ₹832.5 crore of primary capital. Earlier in 2015, RBL raised ₹488 crore through a pre-IPO round of fund-raising.
The private lender raised the funds from international investors including Asian Development Bank (ADB) and CDC.
RBL’s fundraising comes at a time when lenders have been particularly aggressive in raising funds from the market.