Yes Bank Said to Choose BofA, CLSA for $750 Million Share Sale

(Bloomberg) -- Yes Bank Ltd., the Indian lender that scrapped a $1 billion equity offering last year, has picked Bank of America Corp. and CLSA Ltd. to arrange another attempt at an institutional share sale, people with knowledge of the matter said.

The lender, backed by billionaire Rana Kapoor, plans to seek as much as $750 million including a so-called greenshoe option, the people said. IIFL Holdings Ltd. and Motilal Oswal Financial Services Ltd. are also among banks working on the offering, according to the people, who asked asking not to be identified because the information is private. It could launch the share sale as soon as this week, the people said.

Yes Bank has the fastest pace of loan growth among publicly-traded Indian lenders, which has prompted Deutsche Bank to warn it will need to cut the pace by about a third unless it raises equity capital. It shelved a $1 billion share sale in early September amid a slump that saw the stock tumble 19 percent. 

Plans for the offering haven’t been finalized, and the fundraising amount could change, according to the people. A representative for Yes Bank didn’t immediately respond to an email and phone call seeking comment.

To contact the reporters on this story: George Smith Alexander in Mumbai at galexander11@bloomberg.net, Anto Antony in Mumbai at aantony1@bloomberg.net, Crystal Tse in Hong Kong at ctse44@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Ben Scent at bscent@bloomberg.net, Marcus Wright at mwright115@bloomberg.net, Timothy Sifert