The Free Fall Called Yes Bank



Yes bank faced a steady fall mainly because of its inability to raise capital to oversee potential loan losses and resultant downgrades, which started triggering withdrawals of bonds and deposits by the investors.
Its first trouble came to light when RBI mentioned that its bad loans were divulged less by the bank than they actually were, in the year 2017. Some of the big defaulters to whom the bank had provided loans, that came to light in the following years were Essar Power, Vardaraj Cement, Radius Developers, IL&FS, Anil Ambani group, CG Power, Cox&Kings, Café Coffee Day, Essel group, and Mantri Group. The bank had indulged in high-risk lending, providing loans to entities that could not raise funds from elsewhere.
The bank had seen a tremendous fall in fortune over the past 18 months. They tried to overcome this situation by gaining equity invest through private investors over the past year but failed to come up with a concrete investment plan. One of the few reasons for the failure of an adequate restructuring plan was lack of governance standards at yes bank.
RBI had to step into the matter to resolve the crisis faced by the bank, RBI imposed a moratorium on yes bank on 5th march and capped withdrawal limit to rupees 50,000. They also appointed Prashant Kumar, who is deputy managing director and chief finance officer of RBI, as the administrator of the Yes bank. The central bank would also appoint three new directors, chairperson, and CEO. During this phase the share price of Yes bank surged to rupees 5. As everyone was unsure about the future of Yes bank, there was chaos in the market.
The moratorium was lifted on 18th March after a restructuring scheme was passed. As soon as the restructuring scheme was approved private players came up to save the cash strapped bank. following are the investments from the private players:
·         ICICI’s board approved rupees 1,000 crore investment, which is approx 5% stake.
·         HDFC also set to invest rupees 1,000 crores.
·         Axis bank approved 600 crores for 60 crore shares.
·         Kotak Mahindra bank infusing 500 crore rupees.
·         LIC also set to buy 1.35 billion shares at 10 rupees per share.

But the major investor in the bailout scheme is SBI, the State Bank of India would be acquiring a 49% equity stake in Yes bank by infusing 7,250 crore rupees. The price per share is fixed at rupees 10.
After the investments were made, the central bank announced that no investor holding 100 or more than 100 shares of Yes bank would be allowed to sell more than 25% of their holding for 3 years. This regulation was made in order to stabilize banking operations.

After the restructuring scheme was the share price saw a plunge and within a week it touched around 85 rupees. Later the share again started to drop amid coronavirus scare and currently the price of the share is near to rupees 25.

It is expected that the bank will recover soon and will continue smooth operations after the reconstruction scheme.

Thank you,
Regards,
Kevin Furia,
Kautilya,
IBS Mumbai.







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