Govt gets financial bids for IDBI Bank strategic sale: DIPAM Secretary

The privatisation of IDBI Bank has been stalled for over three years, after the government and LIC invited expressions of interest in October 2022 to sell a combined 60.72 per cent stake

New Delhi: The government has received financial bids for the strategic disinvestment of IDBI Bank, Department of Investment and Public Asset Management (DIPAM) Secretary Arunish Chawla said on Friday.

“Financial Bids have been received for the Strategic Disinvestment of the IDBI Bank. They will be evaluated as per the prescribed procedure,” DIPAM secretary said in a post on X.

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The privatisation process of IDBI Bank has been hanging fire for over the past 3 years. The government, together with LIC, had in October 2022, invited EoI (Expression of Interest) for privatising IDBI Bank by selling a total of 60.72 per cent stake. This includes a 30.48 per cent stake of the central government and 30.24 per cent shares of LIC.

Pursuant to inviting EoIs in October 2022, the DIPAM, in January 2023, had said it had received multiple EoIs for IDBI Bank.

The prospective buyer of IDBI Bank has already been granted security clearance by the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) and cleared fit and proper evaluation by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI).

The next stage in the strategic disinvestment process would be that a ‘Reserve Price’, based on valuations by the Transaction Adviser (TA) and the Asset Valuer (AV), will be fixed using respective methodologies as per the established process.

After the independent fixation of the reserve price, the already received sealed financial bids would be opened in the presence of the bidders. The successful bidder will be the one whose offer is the highest among all valid bids, exceeding the reserve price.

The Alternative Mechanism (AM), comprising the Minister of Road Transport and Highways and the Finance Minister, empowered by the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA), would then meet and approve the highest price bid.