Rana Kapoor’s YES Bank stake falls from 11% to near zero; FIIs too offloaded it in Q2

Individual investors emerged the biggest stakeholders in YES Bank at the end of September quarter, even as promoters offloaded nearly half their stake in the private sector lender.

Latest shareholding data available with BSE revealed that individual investors, including high net worth individuals, now own 29.94 per cent stake in the bank against 20.46 per cent as of June 30. Promoter Rana Kapoor’s holding in the bank declined to at 3.92 per cent as of September end from 4.31 per cent at the end of June.

That holding fell further this month after Kapoor made some distress sale of his shares in recent weeks. His two family-owned entities — Yes Capital and Morgan Credits (MCPL) — offloaded shares and brought down their combined stake to 0.80 per cent from 6.29 per cent earlier.

Nippon India Asset Management earlier this month sold the remaining shares that Kapoor had pledged with it as collateral to raise funds. After the invocation of that share pledge, Kapoor’s holding in the bank fell to 0.80 per cent.

Just a year back, last September Kapoor had compared YES Bank shares with diamonds. "Diamonds are forever: My promoter shares of @YESBANK are invaluable to me," he tweeted on September 28, 2018. "I will eventually bequeath my @YESBANK promoter shares to my three daughters and subsequently to their children, with a request in my Will stating not to sell a single share, as diamonds are forever!," he had said

Kapoor and family held 10.66 per cent stake in YES Bank back then, making him the largest shareholder (and promoter) of the mid-sized private bank. Madhu Kapur, wife of later Ashok Kapur, who was the co-founder of YES Bank, held 7.6 per cent.

The bank has been in trouble for over a year now since the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) turned down re-appointment of co-promoter Kapoor as CEO and MD on worries over corporate governance and risk management issues, among others.

The current management led by Chief Executive Officer Ravneet Gill took charge in March.

Data further revealed that Madhu Kapur and her family-owned firm Mags Finvest now hold 8.33 per cent promoter stake in the banks against 9.17 per cent earlier.

Foreign portfolio investors (FPI) offloaded bank shares all through September quarter. FPI holding has slipped to 26.51 per cent from 33.69 per cent during the same period. Domestic mutual fund houses increased their stake in the bank to 9.26 per cent from 6.59 per cent earlier.

Stake of LIC came down to 8.06 per cent from 8.87 per cent in June quarter, following issue of shares to the life insurer in the recent qualified institutional placement.

YES Bank shares traded flat at Rs 40.60 in the afternoon trade on Wednesday, while the benchmark BSE Sensex was up 94 points, or 0.24 per cent, at 38,600.