Dewan Housing Finance has emerged as the front-runner to buy IDBI Bank's home finance subsidiary, IDBI Home Finance, having put the highest bid amongst the three shortlisted bidders.
IDBI Bank's board will meet on Friday to "consider and approve the selection" from amongst the three shortlisted companies, a senior IDBI Bank official told PTI here on condition of anonymity.
"In terms of pricing, Dewan Housing Finance has more weight than the other two companies which are in the race. However, our board will take the decision on whom to sell," the official said.
The two others in the fray to buy the Pune-based home finance company are Tata Capital and Religare Enterprises. IDBI Capital is acting as the advisor to IDBI Bank for the deal.
Earlier, the bank had received Expressions of Interest (EoIs) from over a dozen entities from which it has now zeroed in on the above three.
The home finance unit has a loan portfolio of over Rs 2,700 crore with a presence in 18 centres pan-India.
IDBI Bank decided to sell its subsidiary since it also sells home loan products and felt that offering the same products from two group entities did not make business sense.
The bank had also initially toyed with the idea of merging its subsidiary with itself but later abandoned the plan owing to likely "problems that could arise during the integration process, primarily on the HR side."
