Central Bank of India, a public sector lender, plans to sell non-performing assets (NPAs) of 41 industrial units with an outstanding of Rs 410 crore to clean up its balance sheet.
Three other public sector lenders, Dena Bank, UCO Bank and Vijaya Bank, are also in the market to sell NPAs of over Rs 670 crore.
“These accounts (in the second round) are offered for sale on a cash basis and on a security receipt basis with cash component on as-is-where-is basis and what-is-where-is basis,” said the Mumbai-based bank.
This is part of the bank’s efforts to get the right value for these assets. The bank has made full provision for some of the NPA accounts. If the sale process was completed before the end of March 2010, the earning could boost the bank’s bottom line, industry sources said.
A senior official with a private asset reconstruction company (ARC) said this was the second time in the current financial year that Central Bank of India had put NPAs on the block. In June 2009, the Mumbai-based lender had put on sale NPAs covering 19 accounts from a range of sectors.
In April 2009, S Sridhar, chairman and managing director, had said the bank’s NPAs were huge and that the recovery of bad loans would be in focus this year. The bank was open to selling loans to ARCs, he said.
The bank reported an increase in its gross NPAs to Rs 2,429.96 crore at the end of September 2009 from Rs 2,256.19 crore a year ago. Its net NPAs declined to Rs 625.12 crore from Rs 926.16 crore during the period.
Referring to sale of NPAs in the banking industry, an ARC official said while Dena Bank and Kolkata-based UCO were selling assets worth Rs 287 crore and Rs 105 crore, respectively, through auctions, Vijaya Bank intended to offload NPAs worth Rs 280 crore through a bilateral arrangement.
An Asset Reconstruction Company of India official said there was preference bilateral deals. Given the present circumstances, banks might not get the best value if they opted for the auction route, they said.
