UCO Bank receives government funding for lending business

Lender in no hurry for follow-on public offering despite clearance for FPO would not expire.

UCO Bank said that it would review its plan to enter the equity market with a follow-on public offer (FPO). UCO Bank’s new chairman and management Arun Kaul said that the bank was adequately capitalised to grow its lending business this fiscal and it wasn’t hard-pressed to raise equity capital for the time being. “We have a new management and we have not applied our minds regarding an FPO so far. We will look into this issue later,” Mr Kaul told ET.

Incidentally, Mr Kaul and executive director NR Badrinarayanan have joined the bank just about a fortnight ago on September 1. Another executive director Ajai Kumar is also fairly new in the bank. The Kolkata-based bank was earlier planning sell six crore equity share to raise around `400-500 crore, including premium. It received the government’s clearance for an equity sale in mid-2009. Even, UCO Bank’s previous chairman SK Goel had announced about his plan to raise capital through FPO several times. But it never materialised.

View the full story in Economic Times.