PNB Housing Finance Ltd on Tuesday said Punjab National Bank and US private equity investor the Carlyle Group are in the process of selling at least 51% stake in the mortgage lender.
“We hereby inform you regarding joint communication received today from Punjab National Bank and Quality Investment Holdings (Carlyle Group) regarding sale of minimum 51% stake in PNB Housing Finance Ltd to the potential acquirers. As on date, Punjab National Bank owns 32.79% and Quality Investment Holdings owns 32.36% of the paid-up equity share capital of the company,” PNB Housing Finance said in a stock exchange filing.
Selling the entire stake will fetch Punjab National Bank a little over ₹6,500 crore, going by PNB Housing’s market capitalization of ₹19,957 crore on Tuesday.
Shares of PNB Housing rose 2.07% to ₹1,191.9 on BSE, while the benchmark Sensex gained 0.85% to 36,239.62 points.
On 9 July, The Economic Times reported that PNB Housing had hired investment bank Credit Suisse to help it find a buyer for its stake while Carlyle Group had appointed Morgan Stanley for the purpose.
Carlyle acquired the stake in PNB Housing from financial services firm Destimoney Enterprises Pvt. Ltd in February 2015.
PNB Housing went public in October 2016 in a ₹3,000 crore initial public offering in which the company sold shares to public market investors at ₹775 apiece.
The proposed stake sale in PNB Housing Finance comes at a time when the state-run Punjab National Bank is coping with the fallout of the ₹14,356.84 crore fraud involving fraudulent transactions by jewellers Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi, who are being investigated by multiple probe agencies.
It is alleged that Modi and others conspired with several employees of Punjab National Bank to fraudulently obtain loan guarantees.
Source: Mint