United Bank to raise Rs 300 cr by selling shares to LIC

State-owned United Bank of India plans to raise Rs 300 crore by selling shares on a preferential basis to Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) soon.

“We are waiting for the Government approval. We expect this to come through shortly and thereafter we will issue shares to LIC on preferential basis,” United Bank of India Executive Director Deepak Narang told PTI.

The bank proposes to issue 8.45 crore shares to LIC at a price of Rs 35.50 per share.

Following this, the Government’s share in the bank will come down to 82 per cent from the existing 89.47 per cent.

The shareholders of the bank had recently approved selling shares to LIC.

Currently LIC owns 2.72 per cent stake in United Bank of India.

Meanwhile, as part of its effort to recover loans, the bank will soon embark upon the process of ‘naming and shaming’ wilful defaulters.

“Since the Supreme Court recently permitted banks to name and shame wilful defaulters... now the bank would initiate the process,” he said.

As part of this, the bank will publish photographs of defaulters and other details in newspapers and on the notice-boards of bank branches.

The Kolkata-based lender was the first PSU bank to initiate the process of declaring Vijay Mallya and three other directors of the grounded Kingfisher Airlines as wilful defaulters.

The bank scripted a turnaround in the fourth quarter of 2013-14 by reporting an over 15-fold jump in net profit to Rs 469 crore on the back of cash recovery and upgradation of accounts.

In the January-March 2013 quarter, the bank had posted a profit of Rs 31 crore.