Canara Bank to divest 13% stake in Can Fin Homes by March-end

Can Fin Homes on Tuesday said that its promoter Canara Bank was planning to divest 13.45% stake in the company by March-end. Can Fin Homes informed the BSE that Canara Bank had notified the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) about the stake sale. 

In a BSE filing, Can Fin said, "Canara Bank has informed the company that they have intimated RBI about their proposal to dilute their stake to 30% by March 31, 2017."

It added, "The Bank has also informed the company that based on the acceptability of the prospective investors, final decision to divest the promoter’s stake up to 13.45%  to the investors would be taken by their Board in due course."

For the divesting its stake in Can Fin, the bank has appointed merchant/ investment bankers for sourcing prospective investors. Bidding will be taken from the  prospective investor,  scheduled on March 01, 2017.

Canara Bank has been deliberating a stake sale in Can Fin for a few months. This would be a part of the government's move asking public sector banks (PSBs) to sell their non-core businesses. 

On November 22, 2016, Canara Bank said it would be divesting 13.45% stake in Can Fin taking its overall shareholding pattern to 30% in the NBFC. 

Currently, Canara Bank holds 43.45% stake in Can Fin with the remaining 56.55% belonging to public shareholders.

Last year, another large investor called Catamaran Ventures - a fund belonging to Infosys founder N R Narayana Murthy,  sold 8.76 lakh shares of Can Fin for about Rs 135 crore. It held about 10 lakh shares in housing finance company.

Can Fin Homes recently posted a 41.3% jump in its net profit to Rs 59.60 crore in its third quarter against Rs 42.18 crore a year ago. 

Canara Bank, on the other hand, saw a whopping 279% rise in its net profit at Rs 322 crore in Q3, against Rs 85 crore in the year-ago period.