SBI, Union Bank, PNB pick up stake in NARCL, BFSI News, ET BFSI

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Three state-owned lenders — SBI, Union Bank of India and PNB — picked up over 12 per cent stake each in the proposed bad bank NARCL on Thursday, and said their holdings will be brought down by December. While State Bank of India (SBI) and Union Bank of India picked up 13.27 per cent stake each, representing a cumulative 3.88 crore shares in the National Asset Reconstruction Company Ltd (NARCL), PNB subscribed to 12.06 per cent stake (1,80,00,000 shares).

In a regulatory filing on the subscription to 1,98,00,000 shares of NARCL (pending execution of the investment agreement), the country’s largest lender SBI said the “investment of equity stake of 13.27 per cent by State Bank of India to be reduced to 9.90 per cent by 31st December 2021”.

Union Bank of India, in its regulatory filing, said it has subscribed to 1,98,00,000 shares of NARCL (pending execution of investment agreement).

The lender said it will bring down its stake of 13.27 per cent to 9.90 per cent by December 2021 on subscription by other public sector banks (PSBs)/ financial institutions.

“Punjab National Bank has subscribed to 1,80,00,000 shares of National Asset Reconstruction Company Ltd (pending execution of investment agreement),” the bank said in a separate filing.

PNB said it will bring down its stake from 12.06 per cent to 9 per cent by December 31, 2021.

NARCL, which is yet to become operational, will take over the bad assets of banks in its own account for speedy resolution of sour loans.

All the three lenders have subscribed to the equity in NARCL at Rs 10 per share. The completion of the acquisition by them is expected by March 2022.

Earlier this month, the Cabinet cleared a proposal to provide government guarantee worth Rs 31,000 crore to security receipts issued by the NARCL.

Incorporated on July 7, 2021, NARCL will pay up to 15 per cent of the agreed value for the bad loans in cash and the remaining 85 per cent would be government-guaranteed security receipts.

It will be 51 per cent owned by PSBs and the remaining by private sector lenders. State-owned Canara Bank has expressed its intent to be the lead sponsor of NARCL with a 12 per cent stake. PTI KPM ABM ABM



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Bad Bank to solve Rs 2 lakh crore bad loans, take NPAs off banks’ books; here’s how it will work

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Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Thursday announced that the Union government will guarantee Rs 30,600 worth of security receipts issued by the National Asset Reconstruction Company.

The Bad Bank is finally here, after a decade of discourse. It aims to help clean up banks’ books by taking over Rs 2 lakh crore bad loans. If it works as intended, Bad Bank may help cut system-wide bank NPAs (non-performing assets) by over 1%, and help recover some of bad debts too, analysts say. The National Asset Reconstruction Company (NARCL), as it is officially named, will acquire banks’ bad debt to resolve or liquidate. It will buy these stressed assets for a mix of cash, and government-guaranteed security receipts.

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Thursday announced that the Union government will guarantee Rs 30,600 worth of security receipts issued by the National Asset Reconstruction Company (NARCL). “NARCL will acquire stressed assets through 15% cash payment to banks based on valuation and the rest 85% will be given as security receipts,” Nirmala Sitharaman said. The government-backed security receipts can only be invoked on resolution or liquidation.

What is NARCL? Why is it needed?

The National Asset Reconstruction Company (NARCL) was proposed by the Finance Minister in her Union Budget speech. NARCL, popularly known as Bad Bank, will function as an asset reconstruction company set up by banks to resolve stressed assets for smoother functioning. Public sector banks will have 51% ownership in NARCL. The bad bank intends to resolve stressed loan assets above Rs 500 crore each.

How the Bad Bank will work

Bad loan transfer: NARCL will take over bad loans worth Rs 2 lakh crore from banks, of which Rs 90,000 crore will be taken over in the first phase. The Ministry of Finance said that NARCL will acquire bad loans from banks for a mutually agreed-upon value (understandably, a net value after a haircut). NARCL will pay 15% of the agreed net value of the bad debt upfront in cash and the remaining 85% in form of security receipts. The banks would use this 15% cash upfront to reverse the debt write down. As for the security receipts for the remaining 85%, the bank would redeem those when the bad bank resolves or liquidates the bad debt; or, the bank may also trade these securities for cash.

Provision write-back: “These loans are fully provided in the books of the bank. The upfront cash received, 15% of the written-down value, would be reversed while the provisions for the balance (value of security receipts) are unlikely to be reversed even if it is fully provided,” analysts at Kotak Securities wrote in a note. “The larger release of provisions, if any, would be made as and when the cash is received on sale of these receipts or redemption of security receipts. The government guarantee on SRs can enable trading of these securities,” Kotak Securities added.

Government guarantee: The security receipts issued by NARCL are backed by the Union government guarantee. The government guarantee will cover any shortfall between the face value of the receipts and the actual realisation value of the bad loan.

Resolution is key

“How efficiently the professionals are resolving the stressed assets is to be monitored. One can argue that bad bank is likely to become a warehouse for stressed loans without expected recovery as it will be difficult to find buyers for legacy assets,” ICICI Securities said in a note. The Resolution of the proposed Rs 2 lakh crore of legacy stressed assets will lower GNPLs (gross non performing loans) by more than 2%, the note said. The estimated realisable value of 18% will lead to provisioning write-back of Rs 36,000 crore. “Through successful execution of phase-1, one can expect near term NPA reduction of >1% and NPA recoveries equivalent to 10bps of system credit,” ICICI Securities said.

Why is government guarantee needed?

The government said that resolution mechanisms of dealing with a backlog of NPAs typically require a backstop from the Government. “This imparts credibility and provides for contingency buffers. Hence, a Government Guarantee of up to Rs 30,600 crore will back Security Receipts (SRs) issued by NARCL. The guarantee will be valid for 5 years. The condition precedent for invocation of guarantee would be resolution or liquidation,” the finance ministry said.

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A $27 billion pile of debt looms over India’s new bad bank, BFSI News, ET BFSI

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By Upmanyu Trivedi and Rahul Satija

A bad bank in India that’s expected to launch this month may help reduce one of the world’s worst bad-loan piles but market participants say it’s a long path ahead.

The new institution, which is set to start operations by the end of June, is likely to handle stressed debt worth 2 trillion rupees ($27 billion) over time, according to a BloombergQuint report. That would be about a quarter of the nation’s non-performing debt load. By housing bad loans of many lenders under one roof, the entity should help speed up decision-making and improve bargaining power when resolving these assets.

But for India to overcome its struggles with bad debt and stabilize the financial system of Asia’s third-largest economy, more fundamental problems with insolvency laws introduced in 2016 need to be addressed, investors say. Their confidence in the country’s bankruptcy reforms has been shaken as creditors’ recovery rates fall, delays in closing cases increase, and liquidations exceed resolutions in the insolvency courts.

Market participants will be watching whether the bad bank focuses on actually resolving the assets rather than keeping them like a warehouse, and whether its team includes appropriate industry and turnaround experts.

“The proposed bad bank is useful as a one-time clean-up exercise of the bad loans that are pending resolution for years now,” said Raj Kumar Bansal, managing director at Edelweiss Asset Reconstruction Co. “But it’s not a long-term solution in dealing with the stressed assets,” he said, adding that bankruptcy reform is key.

Less than one in 10 companies admitted in the insolvency courts is getting resolved while a third are facing liquidation, data compiled by Insolvency and Bankruptcy Board of India show. The recoveries for financiers from the resolved cases have also dropped to 39% of dues as of March from 46% a year earlier. And if the top nine cases by recovery are excluded, lenders received just 24% of dues, according to Macquarie Capital.

“India’s bankruptcy reforms started off well but they have slowed currently,” said Nikhil Shah, managing director at Alvarez & Marsal India. “Prolonged delays in resolutions, lengthy court battles, and uncertainty of recoveries post-approval of resolution plans are pushing many potential investors away” from the bankruptcy process, he said.

A $27 billion pile of debt looms over India’s new bad bank
Shah expects the delays in resolutions to worsen further unless the government and judiciary address some of the primary issues, by for example increasing the number of judges and investing in digital infrastructure to boost productivity.

Indian Banks’ Association, which is helping with plans for the proposed bad bank, and Insolvency and Bankruptcy Board of India, didn’t immediately respond to emails seeking comment.

For now, Indian banks will be happy to finally kick away some of the stressed loans to the proposed entity. The sector’s bad-loan ratio is is set to almost double to 13.5% of total advances by the end of September, India’s central bank said in a report published before the second wave of coronavirus infections hit the country.

“Stressed loans have taken far too much management time across the industry in the past couple of years,” Prashant Kumar, chief executive officer at Yes Bank Ltd., told Bloomberg. “This bad bank will help shift focus from resolving soured loans to improving credit growth.”



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