Equity raise, qualitative growth, likely challenges for incumbent SBI chief

SBI's share of loans under moratorium was the lowest among PSBs at 10 per cent; clearer picture on asset quality likely by December

The State Bank of India (SBI) stock might have been a laggard under Rajnish Kumar’s leadership. This was the case with all public-sector banks (PSBs). However, Kumar did what few SBI chairmen have accomplished — tuned the SBI stock into a “must-have” for brokerages, including foreign houses such as Morgan Stanley, Jefferies, Macquarie, and UBS, which generally don’t favour PSBs. With 92 per cent ‘buy’ ratings (of 53 brokerages covering the bank according to Bloomberg), optimism is at its highest.

At 83.6 per cent, the provision coverage ratio (PCR) suggests that a major chunk of legacy loans have been taken care