Rana Kapoor's family sells another 1.8% in YES Bank; stock falls 4.9%

YES Capital, one of the promoter entities of YES Bank, on Thursday sold 1.8 per cent stake in the private lender. The share sale helped the promoter group entity, owned by Rana Kapoor’s family, raise around Rs 240 crore. YES Capital sold 46.5 million shares at Rs 51.94 apiece.

YES Capital said the proceeds would go to Franklin Templeton Asset Management, with whom its shareholding of YES Bank was pledged. “The proceeds will be utilised to prepay entire balance outstanding non-convertible debentures (NCDs) of Yes Capital subscribed by various schemes of Franklin Templeton,” said the firm in a release.

Last week, another promoter entity Morgan Credits had sold 2.3 per cent stake in YES Bank for Rs 337 crore to prepay a certain part of its outstanding dues to Reliance Nippon Life AMC (RNam).

A year ago, YES Capital had placed zero-coupon NCDs amounting to Rs 630 crore with Franklin Templeton. Since then, shares of YES Bank have nearly 80 per cent. The sharp fall in the share price has put pressure on YES Bank promoters to furnish higher collateral to avoid invocation of pledged shares by promoters.

The promoter group has achieved “full and final prepayment to Franklin Templeton of entire outstanding NCDs well ahead of the scheduled maturity date of October 2020,”said YES Capital in a release.

Following the sale of shares by YES Capital, Rana Kapoor and his promoter entities shareholding in the private lender fell to 5.5 per cent. Of the 5.5 per cent, Rana Kapoor owns 3.92 per cent, Morgan Credits has 0.46 per cent, and YES Capital holds 1.15 per cent.

YES Capital also said with the share sales, the promoter shareholding in YES Bank has dropped below 15 per cent, making it fully compliant with the Reserve Bank of India’s shareholding cap.

Shares of YES Bank closed 4.93 per cent down at Rs 51.05 on the BSE on Thursday.