(Bloomberg) -- India’s central bank is close to completing the due diligence of potential buyers for IDBI Bank Ltd. that the government expects to privatize by March, a top finance ministry official said.
The Reserve Bank of India is expected to give the “fit and proper” clearance in the next few weeks, Tuhin Kanta Pandey, secretary at the finance ministry’s Department of Investment and Public Asset Management, said in an interview Thursday. The government plans to seek financial bids in a “couple of months” and complete the privatization by the end of the current fiscal year, he said.
The Indian government and state-owned Life Insurance Corp together plan to sell nearly 61% stake in the Mumbai-listed lender. They missed earlier deadlines to complete the sale due to delays in securing regulatory approvals and other hurdles including scrapping the selection of the asset valuer last year. The six-week long national election that ended in early June also slowed down state asset sales.
In its latest budget unveiled this week, India set a target to raise 500 billion rupees ($6 billion) via stake sales by March.
Separately, the government plans to trim its holding in Vedanta Group-controlled Hindustan Zinc Ltd. as it plans to sell a 3%-5% stake this fiscal year, Pandey said. The government, which owns about 30% of the miner, is re-engaging with banks on the planned stake sale, he said.
--With assistance from Shruti Srivastava.
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