Working in close cooperation: Lakshmi Vilas Bank on Indiabulls Housing merger

Chennai: Private sector Lakshmi Vilas Bank (LVB) on Thursday said it was working in close cooperation with the Indiabulls Housing Finance Ltd (IHFL)to ensure regulatory approvals were received at the earliest.

Early this year, Lakshmi Vilas Bank had announced its merger with Indiabulls Housing Finance Ltd in a share-swap deal with an intent to create a combined entity with larger capital base and wider geographical reach.

"We refer to our earlier announcement of a planned amalgamation with IHFL and Indiabulls Commercial Credit Ltd. We have to say that the bank is working in close cooperation with IHFL to ensure that all regulatory approvals are received at the earliest", the bank said in a regulatory filing on Thursday.

On the recovery of bad loans, the bank said efforts to recover them have gained momentum and over the last four quarters the bank had recovered Rs 783 crore bad loans.

The bank said consequent upon the completion of the preferential allotment of 1.68 crore equity shares, aggregating Rs 188.16 crore to Indiabulls Housing Finance Ltd, the bank's tier I Capital and Capital Adequacy Ratio was strengthened by 110 basis points.

"The Tier-I capital now comes to 5.56 per cent while the total CAR (capital adequacy ratio) to 7.56 per cent", it said.

The bank is taking further steps to enhance the capital at the earliest, it said.

Shares of Lakshmi Vilas Bank ended at Rs 38.95 apiece down by 4.88 per cent over previous close on BSE.