Indiabulls Housing Finance Limited has sold yet another piece of stake in the parent of British lender OakNorth Bank Ltd for about Rs 630 crore ($85 million).
The Mumbai-based company has sold around 4.7% stake of OakNorth Holding Ltd to London-based TEMF Limited, a fund managed by the UK’s Toscafund Asset Management LLP.
Toscafund, with about $4 billion of assets under management, was founded in 2000 and has a network of global institutional investors, private family offices, and investment intermediaries spanning the globe.
Indiabulls Housing plans to retain the remaining stake of around 8%, according to a person aware of the development.
Earlier this month, the non-banking financial company (NBFC) had made a multi-fold gain by selling around 3% stake in the British lender’s parent to US-based HighSage Ventures LLC.
“With the latest stake sale, the company has raised a total of Rs 1,832 crore as fresh equity in the month of September 2020 (Rs 683 crore through QIP (qualified institutional placement) and Rs 1,149 crore through sale of stake in the British lender’s parent), adding to the regulatory equity capital,” Indiabulls Housing said in a statement.
As of March 31, it had a 15.71% stake in OakNorth Holding, according to its annual report for 2019-20.
It had invested Rs 663 crore in November 2015 for a 39.8% stake after failing to get a banking licence in India. Also, Indiabulls Housing’s promoter Sameer Gehlaut had bought up to 10% for Rs 166 crore. The twin deals valued the parent at around $250 million at the time.
Indiabulls Housing’s stake fell in October 2017 when the parent raised fresh capital from new investors at a valuation of $1.2 billion. The following month, Indiabulls divested a 10% stake for $118 million (about Rs 770 crore).
The Indian company’s stake fell again when SoftBank Group Corp invested $440 million at a valuation of $2.8 billion in 2019.
In September that year, Indiabulls Housing sold another portion of its stake in OakNorth Holding for Rs 82 crore, taking the total fundraise through the stake sale at Rs 522 crore.
It didn’t name the buyer, saying only that it was an existing sovereign shareholder of the bank. OakNorth counts Singapore sovereign wealth fund GIC as a shareholder.
In 2020-21 so far, the homegrown NBFC has issued bonds of Rs 2,780 crore and has raised Rs 1,832 crore in fresh equity. The sale proceeds will be accretive to the regulatory net worth and the capital adequacy ratio, the NBFC said.
Further, the company said it has launched a buyback of all its bonds maturing in next 12 months.
