Axis beefs up capital with Rs 10K crore QIP; ICICI Pru, Fidelity buy

Private sector lender Axis Bank on Tuesday said it has raised Rs 10,000 crore through allotment of equity shares to qualified institutional buyers (QIB).

Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, a slew of lenders have been bolstering their capital because of the likely impact to their balancesheets because of the crisis. Excess liquidity is helping them raise money quickly.

The bank's chief executive and managing director Amitabh Chaudhry said the issue was subscribed over 3.5 times and received over 70 bids from a diverse set of global and domestic investors.

Investors who participated in the round of capital raise include ICICI Prudential Mutual Fund, Aditya Birla Sun Life Mutual Fund, Fidelity Investments, T Rowe

Price, Bajaj Life Insurance and also Max Life Insurance, a source said.

The bank allotted 238 million shares at a price of Rs 420.10 per piece, which is a 5% discount to the floor price of Rs 442.19 set earlier, it informed the exchanges.

The paid up equity share capital of the bank has now gone up to Rs 612 crore (over 3 crore shares of the face value of Rs 2 each) as compared to Rs 564 crore earlier.

Chaudhry said the common equity tier-I buffer now goes up to 15.13% and the total capital adequacy has moved up by nearly two percentage points to 19.1%.

He said the bank already had the required capital to make provisions for the likely reverses amid the COVID-19 pandemic and added that the new fundraise places it at a comfortable level.