The Hindu Business Line : PNB scouting for overseas acquisitions

With the global financial meltdown driving down global banking sector valuations, state-owned Punjab National Bank (PNB) is looking at overseas acquisitions and is scouting across geographies for potential takeover targets.

“The global crisis is definitely an opportunity… This is a good time to take forward our overseas expansion plans and we are actively looking at it (acquisitions abroad),” Dr K.C. Chakrabarty, Chairman and Managing Director of PNB, the country’s second largest public sector lender, told Business Line.

He said that buyout targets in Kazakhstan were high on the bank’s agenda, with the possibility of the acquisition of a local bank in that country on the cards. The interest among banking sector players to widen their footprint in countries such as Kazakhstan, according to experts, comes in the wake of emerging business prospects for potential atomic fuel supplies from the uranium-rich Central Asian Republic to India in the near future.

Representative office

PNB had established a representative office in the Kazakh capital Almaty way back in 1998. Dr Chakrabarty said PNB would look at upgrading the office as a first step in its efforts to expand in Kazakhstan, even as it looks to take the inorganic route to step up its presence there.

PNB already has a presence in Dubai, the UK, Hong Kong, Shanghai and Singapore and plans to expand in countries such as Canada and Norway. PNB had also proposed to start a joint venture bank in the Bhutan and has made an application with the Royal Bank of Bhutan.

India is planning to scout for uranium supplies from countries such as Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Canada to fuel existing domestic nuclear power plants, which are currently running at half their installed capacity due to fuel shortages.

Most of the country’s 17 nuclear power plants are currently generating power at efficiency levels of around 54 per cent, which could go up to well over 80 per cent if fuel was made available. The waiver from the 45-member Nuclear Supplier Group, of which Kazakhstan is a member, has given India a wide choice for sourcing nuclear fuel from these countries.

Related Stories:
PNB in race for Kazak bank
17% growth in PNB biz
PNB’s net rises 21% in Q1

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