Purnendu Chatterjee-led The Chatterjee Group (TCG) is planning to foray into the banking sector and may approach the Reserve Bank of India soon for approval to set up a bank headquartered in West Bengal.
“Although many banks are coming up, the state is underbanked. So, we want to establish a bank headquartered in West Bengal,” said Chatterjee, after a meeting with West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee at Writers’ Building today. The firm is expected to approach the RBI soon for banking license. However, Chatterjee did not divulge further details about his plans, as he refused to clarify whether it would be a non-banking financial company or as a bank. The initial capital involved in this plan was also not revealed.
“Today we had the initial-level talks on this and we are very positive about this. We will have regular meetings with the chief minister as well as the commerce and industry minister Partha Chatterjee on how things will work out,” he added. This may not be a cakewalk for the group as the apex bank on the process of fine tuning the guidelines on granting new banking licenses with the finance ministry.
Last year it was announced that RBI would consider giving traditional banking licenses to private sector players. Subsequently, a discussion paper was circulated by the central bank in August, 2010, on giving out new banking licenses to business houses and non-banking finance companies. The RBI had sought to know "whether industrial and business houses could be allowed to promote banks." A top company official said that it would approach the central bank once the new guidelines are out.
Meanwhile, TCG’s announcement comes almost a month after Chatterjee, who is the vice chairman of Haldia Petrochemicals (HPL) — in which TCG and the state government are key stake holders — announced a massive investment plan by HPL. The Eastern India’s largest petrochemical company is planning to invest about Rs 4,000 crore in eight projects. For the projects — which include butin, ethylene propylene diene monomer (EPDM), styrene-butadiene rubber (SBR) and maleic anhydride — the company will look for private equity (PE) partners at a debt equity ratio of 1.5:1. Chatterjee said that for financial tie ups, a clarity is needed in the ownership structure of the company and will have to wait for sometime for the issue to be solved.
Chatterjee established New York-based TCG (TCG) in 1986 and has diversified interests in investment banking, real estate, petrochemicals and life sciences. The group has about 8000 employees worldwide. When asked about the group’s plan in the state, Aniruddha Lahiri, head of TCG’s operations in India, said, “Along with the Rs 4,000-crore investment plans in HPL, we are planning to come up with a knowledge hub on intelligent infrastructure and may also foray into education sector through a research center on sustainable energy.”
However, Lahiri said the investment for these projects are not yet clear as it is still in initial stage. “We have thrown this idea to the new government as they are more keen on TCG investments, compared to the erstwhile one,” he added. With a judgment avaited soon on the legal battle for control of HPL by TCG and the state government, new plans by Chatterjee might turn out to be an olive branch for truce and may even see the resurrection of the former investment banker on Trinamool Congress era.
