ICICI Bank highest bad loan seller to Arcil

ICICI Bank has emerged as the largest seller of bad loans, 134 cases worth Rs 8,450 crore, to the Asset Reconstruction Company of India (Arcil).

The country's largest private bank sold 13 cases worth Rs 1,602 crore in March, the last month of fiscal 2004-05. Towards the year end, banks clean up their books ahead of their annual results.

State Bank of India is the second largest seller to Arcil, having sold 181 cases worth Rs 2,468 crore followed by Industrial Development Bank of India at Rs 1,334 crore, banking sources said.

Arcil, however, has not been able to acquire assets at the pace at which it had initially intended, Rajendra Kakker, managing director & CEO, said. The reason being that banks and institutions did not want to sell assets to Arcil at a discount since it takes a toll on their profits.

In FY05, Arcil acquired 246 bad loan accounts worth R 8,536 crore although the earlier intention was to acquire assets worth Rs 15,000 crore.

Other sellers to Arcil in this fiscal include IFCI Rs 654 crore, Exim Bank Rs 219 crore, Punjab National Bank Rs 563 crore, Bank of India Rs 388 crore, Canara Bank Rs 166 crore, Andhra Bank Rs 126 crore, South Indian Bank Rs 122 crore, and State Bank of Hyderabad Rs 110 crore.

Interestingly, Oriental Bank of Commerce, which has a large amount of NPAs after taking over Global Trust Bank, has sold merely one case worth Rs 35 crore.

In its one-and-half years of operations Arcil has acquired 362 bad loan cases worth Rs 14,926 crore. Of this, Rs 4,241 crore was from 18 working capital lenders and Rs 10,685 crore from six financial institutions, including the erstwhile ICICI, Kakker said.

Of the working capital loans acquired by India's only asset reconstruction company, State Bank of India's share is about 59 per cent, followed by Punjab National Bank at about 14 per cent.