Yes Bank Shares Advance 7% as Lender Claims Receiving Offers from 'Prominent Investors'

Yes Bank Ltd shares advanced 7% in intraday trade on Thursday after the private sector lender said it has received non-binding expressions of interests (EOIs) from “several prominent investors”, including J.C. Flowers and Co. LLC, Tilden Park Capital Management LP, OHA (UK) LLP (part of Oak Hill Advisors) and Silver Point Capital.

At 11:26am, Yes Bank shares were trading at Rs 37.30, up 6%, after hitting the day’s high of Rs 37.65. The stock has last a whopping 78% in the last one year compared with a 13% rise in the benchmark Nifty 50 index.

Yes Bank also informed exchanges that earnings for the third quarter ended December (Q3) will be delayed beyond the regulatory timeframe as the lender is currently reviewing the EoIs. As per norms, a company must declare results within 45 days of the end of the quarter.

“Given that the current capital raising process has the bank’s fullest attention, it would like to inform the exchanges that it will publish its unaudited financial results for the quarter and nine-month period ending December 31, 2019, on or before March 14, 2020,” the lender said in a filing to stock exchanges.

Notably, this is the second time the bank has given a list of investors since November last year. The first list included names like Canadian industrialist Erwin Singh Braich, SPGP Holdings, Citax Holdings and Citax Investment Group. That time, Yes Bank’s MD and CEO Ravneet Gill had said that the bank had offers of $3 billion on the table.

Last month, the bank’s board rejected Braich’s $1.2 billion offer and decided to consider the offer of $500 million from Citax Holdings and Citax Investment Group.

Meanwhile, India Ratings (Ind-Ra) on Wednesday, for the second time in two months, downgraded long-term issuer rating on certain debt instruments of Yes Bank to ‘A-’ from ‘A’ and also maintained it on the rating watch ‘negative’. The rating agency said the downgrade reflects the continued delay and inconclusive quantum of the anticipated equity infusion in the beleaguered bank.

The downgrades are on three bonds worth Rs 25,680 crore, Ind-Ra said, adding that if the bank finalised the publicly announced fund-raising plan by the end of the month, the same could be reviewed.