India's No.3 private lender Axis Bank has said on Friday that its board has approved the transfer of Enam Securities' investment banking and equities businesses to self, which will be eventually sold to the bank's wholly owned unit for Rs 274 crore.
Late last year, Axis Bank said it would buy the two units for $456 million in an all-stock transaction, but regulatory hurdles prevented the acquisition to take effect.
The structure, announced on Friday, broadly retains the original deal contours, but now involves a cash payout to Axis Bank from its own unit for transferring Enam's businesses.
"It's an accounting treatment mainly to comply with the regulations," a senior official at Enam Securities, who did not want to be named, said.
"There is no structural changes to the deal, which we had announced earlier," he added.
In April, the Reserve Bank of India had given an in-principle approval to the deal but had asked the bank to revise its scheme of accounting and eventual structure for the new business.
It had also stipulated that no shareholder of Enam Securities acquiring shares of Axis Bank under the scheme of arrangement would be eligible for being a director on the board of the lender.
Axis had since been reviewing the deal and in July, sought some modifications to the approval granted by the central bank.
Enam shareholders will be issued 13.7 million shares on the basis of the agreed swap ratio of 5.7 shares of the bank for every one share held, Axis has said in a statement.
The Enam businesses that Axis is absorbing generated pre-tax profit of Rs 920 million ($20.3 million) on operating income of Rs 242 crore in the fiscal year that ended in March 2010.
Axis Bank said the deal structure outlined on Friday was in accordance with the conditions prescribed by the central bank. It will now go back to the regulators for clearance.
Its shares, valued at nearly $10 billion, ended up 1.58 per cent at Rs 1,133.35 in a firm Mumbai market.
