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Canara Bank calls off plan to sell housing finance arm yet again

By TEAM VCC

  • 14 Jan 2020
Canara Bank calls off plan to sell housing finance arm yet again
Credit: VCCircle

Canara Bank said on Tuesday it has scrapped a plan to sell its entire stake in housing finance arm Can Fin Homes Ltd.

The state-run bank didn’t specify reason for calling off the divestment process in its filing to stock-exchanges.

The bank had revived efforts to sell its stake in Can Fin Homes in June last year.

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The bank’s divestment plan was part of its efforts to monetise its non-core assets. Several other state-run banks have also sold non-core assets as they reel under a pile of bad loans.

In September last year, the Mint newspaper cited Canara Bank chief executive RA Sankara Narayanan as saying that 12 potential investors had evinced interest in buying its stake in Can Fin Homes.

Canara Bank had previously shelved the plan to sell its stake in Can Fin Homes in April 2018 after talks with a dozen suitors, including eight private equity firms, failed to make a headway due to a valuation mismatch. These firms included Baring Private Equity Asia, Warburg Pincus, KKR, True North, Bain Capital, Temasek and Blackstone. Kotak Mahindra Bank, RBL Bank and HDFC Ltd were also in the race to pick up the stake, VCCircle reported earlier.

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Canara Bank holds a 29.99% stake in the publicly listed home finance company. Singapore sovereign wealth fund GIC Pte. Ltd owns a 13.45% stake, which it had bought in March 2017 from Canara Bank for Rs 753.77 crore. Public shareholders and other institutional investors own the remaining stake in the company.

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