India's largest bank plans to raise 250 billion rupees in share sale
[MUMBAI] State Bank of India, or SBI, plans to raise 250 billion rupees (S$3.8 billion) through new shares and this fiscal year, marking the first equity raising by the state lender in seven years.
Net income at the country's biggest lender fell 9.9 per cent to 186.4 billion rupees in the three months to March, from a year earlier, according to a statement on Saturday (May 3). It managed to beat the 179.9 billion rupees average estimate of 18 analysts.
The fundraising plan comes as local bank shares are trading at record highs, with the sector seen as relatively shielded from tariff-related turmoil. Private sector lender Axis Bank last month unveiled plans to raise US$6.4 billion, while IDFC First Bank is raising capital from Warburg Pincus and Abu Dhabi Investment Authority.
Mumbai-based State Bank of India will raise this sum via a share sale in the year ending March 2026 in one or more trances, it said. The bank declared a dividend of 15.9 rupees per share.
Peers including HDFC Bank and ICICI Bank beat quarterly profit estimates last month, driven by higher interest income.
The capital raising would be based on business needs and the market conditions, SBI chairman Challa Sreenivasulu Setty in a post-earnings briefing. 'The bank has adequate capital to support growth at the current capital adequacy levels,' he said.
BT in your inbox
Start and end each day with the latest news stories and analyses delivered straight to your inbox.
Sign Up
Sign Up
The bank will continue accessing debt capital through additional Tier-1 and infrastructure bonds.
Setty also expects India's central bank to cut its policy repo rate by another 50 basis points by March 2026, which could squeeze the bank's margins as deposits and loans are repriced. 'We have moderated our credit growth to 12 to 13 per cent this year and system level growth could be lower at 10-11 per cent,' he said.
SBI's loan advances rose 12 per cent to 42.2 trillion rupees to March from a year earlier, while deposit base climbed 9.5 per cent to 53.82 trillion rupees.
Its gross non-performing assets decreased to 1.82 per cent from the year-ago period and was lower than the estimate of 1.98 per cent.
Loan growth for housing and business loans to small-medium enterprises will remain strong this year, while corporates are assessing the impact of the tariff wars, according to Setty.
'We have around 3.4 trillion rupees in corporate loans in the pipeline,' he said. 'From what we are seeing, companies are not stepping away from their investment plans.' BLOOMBERG
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Straits Times
8 hours ago
- Straits Times
Ukraine asks allies to allocate 0.25% of GDP to boost its weapons production
Ukrainian servicemen preparing to fire a howitzer towards Russian troops, at a front line position in Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia region, on June 16. PHOTO: REUTERS Ukraine asks allies to allocate 0.25% of GDP to boost its weapons production KYIV - President Volodymyr Zelensky has called on Ukraine's Western partners to allocate 0.25 per cent of their GDP to helping Kyiv ramp up weapons production and said the country plans to sign agreements this summer to start exporting weapon production technologies. In remarks released for publication by his office on June 21, Mr Zelensky said Ukraine was in talks with Denmark, Norway, Germany, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Lithuania to launch joint weapon production. 'Ukraine is part of Europe's security and we want 0.25 per cent of the GDP of a particular partner country to be allocated for our defence industry and domestic production,' Mr Zelensky said. As the war with a bigger and better-equipped Russia has intensified in recent weeks, Ukraine's need for new weapons and ammunition is constantly growing. This year, Kyiv had secured US$43 billion (S$55 billion) to finance its domestic weapon production, Mr Zelensky said. Member nations of the Nato military alliance are expected to meet next week in The Hague, to discuss higher defence spending. Nato Secretary-General Mark Rutte has proposed that countries should each agree to spend 5 per cent of their GDP on defence and security measures. Mr Zelensky said he was likely to visit the Nato summit, adding that several meetings with Western leaders had been set up on the sidelines. He also said that he hoped to meet US President Donald Trump. Last week, Mr Zelensky attended the Group of Seven summit in Canada as he sought to discuss stronger sanctions against Russia and more military support for Ukraine with Mr Trump there. But he failed to meet the US President as Mr Trump left a day early for Washington to address the Israel-Iran conflict. Ukraine currently covers about 40 per cent of its defence needs with domestic production, and the government is constantly looking for ways to increase production further. Kyiv plans to launch joint weapon production outside of the country and will start exporting some of its military production technologies, Mr Zelensky said. 'We have launched a programme 'Build with Ukraine', and in the summer we will sign relevant agreements to start exporting our technologies abroad in the format of opening production lines in European countries,' Mr Zelensky said. The discussions focused on producing different types of drones, missiles, and potentially artillery, he said. REUTERS More on this Topic Zelenskiy says Ukraine developing interceptor drones to counter Russian attacks Join ST's Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.
Straits Times
12 hours ago
- Straits Times
Japanese restaurants, food companies switching to noodles from rice
Rice prices have doubled from 2024 and remain around a spike initially triggered by a poor harvest. PHOTO: AFP As cost-sensitive consumers are steering clear of rice after a price surge to record highs, restaurant chains and food companies are turning to noodles. Antworks Co, operator of Densetsu no Sutadonya eateries offering pork rice bowls, opened its first ramen noodle restaurant in Tokyo in May and plans another three by next February to diversify its operations. 'We have touted our (pork bowl) business as a large portion of our business portfolio, but rice prices are now more than three times higher than those several years ago,' a spokesperson at the Tokyo-based restaurant chain operator said. A pork rice bowl set meal with miso soup and raw egg is now priced at 890 yen (S$7.80), compared with 630 yen in 2021. The spokesperson said consumers would likely stay away if the price were raised to over 1,000 yen. 'The outlook for our business would be more severe if we were just focusing on (pork) bowls,' the official said, adding that the cost of a ramen noodle dish is 100 yen to 150 yen cheaper than a pork bowl. Yoshinoya Holdings Co, the parent of major beef bowl restaurant operator Yoshinoya Co, is also strengthening its ramen noodle business, as it views the beef bowl restaurant market in Japan as saturated. Yoshinoya Holdings Executive vice-president Norihiro Ozawa says its ramen noodle business allows the company to 'balance' ingredient costs with offerings aside from rice and meat. According to the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, rice prices have doubled from 2024 and remain around a spike initially triggered by a poor harvest. The average price stood at 4,176 yen per 5kg in the week through June 8, despite releases from the government's rice stockpiles. At supermarkets, consumers are looking for alternatives to rice. According to TableMark Co, sales of its frozen udon noodles grew around 10 per cent in value terms in April and May from 2024, while sales of Kikkoman Corp's packaged udon noodle soup and ingredients rose 10 per cent in the three months through May from the same period in 2024. Meiji Holdings C. said sales of its mainstay Meiji Bulgaria Yogurt products have maintained around 10 per cent growth each month since April 2024. KYODO NEWS Join ST's Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.
Straits Times
15 hours ago
- Straits Times
Meta launches $513 Oakley AI glasses with 3K video recording
The display-free Oakley glasses are one component of the overall Meta AI hardware strategy. PHOTO: META Meta Platforms Inc. is going up-market with its surprise hit smart glasses, rolling out new models with Oakley that are aimed at athletes and include improved video recording. The company on June 20 launched new models based on Oakley's HSTN design, marking the company's first expansion away from Ray-Ban for its display-free glasses. Like the original models, the Oakley versions can make and take phone calls, play music, take pictures and video and use Meta's artificial intelligence to answer questions about the surrounding environment. The new versions, which start at US$399 (S$513) and go up to US$499 for a limited edition model with gold-colored accents, include about double the battery life, video-recording at 3K resolution and water resistance. 'We are increasingly seeing performance use cases with the Ray-Bans like people wearing them on roller coasters, cycling and being around water, so we're trying to lean into that,' says Mr Alex Himel, the company's vice-president in charge of wearables, in an interview. Arriving at its second glasses brand was far from a sure thing. Meta's first glasses, the Ray-Ban Stories, flopped in 2021. But its follow-up version in 2023 was a massive success, giving the social networking giant a real potential hardware stronghold in the artificial intelligence race. 'It was crazy. Popularity caught us by surprise a bit,' Mr Himel said. The Ray-Bans were 'going to be the last display-less pair of glasses. We said we'll take two swings at it, and if it doesn't work we'll go all-in on augmented reality'. Instead, beyond the latest Oakley model, the company has a multi-year road map for the display-less category and is planning a follow-up pair of Oakley glasses based on the Sphera design for later in 2025 , according to people with knowledge of the matter. That pair will be aimed at cyclists and have a centred camera. The model on June 20 has a camera positioned in the upper corner like the Ray-Ban version. The display-free glasses are one component of the overall Meta AI hardware strategy. The company is planning to introduce higher-end glasses with a display to view notifications and the camera view finder later in 202 5, Bloomberg News has reported. In 2027, it aims to roll out its first true augmented reality glasses, which will blend digital apps with the real world. Meta's form-factor has caught on, with several other technology companies working on competitors. Apple Inc. is planning to introduce its first glasses product at the end of 2026, Bloomberg News has reported. That device will operate similarly to the Meta product but better synchronise with the rest of the Apple ecosystem. Inc. also sells glasses, but their current models lack cameras. Mr Himel, who said Meta has sold millions of glasses and has a 'nice, increasing multiple' of purchases on a year-over-year basis each week, attributed the increased popularity to the Ray-Bans improving across a large number of 'small things.' He said the audio quality and microphones started to surpass standalone earbuds, while the camera and AI quality also improved. Still, Mr Himel said battery life remains the 'number one complaint' about the Ray-Ban versions. The new Oakley models can run for 8 hours on a single charge, with the charging case holding 48 hours of juice. 'You should expect a 40 per cent bump with these' he says, attributing the improvement to new battery chemistry and software optimisations – not larger battery packs. Like Ray-Ban, Oakley is owned by EssilorLuxottica SA, which calls Oakley its second most popular brand after Ray-Ban. Mr Himel said Meta will roll out new brands under the EssilorLuxottica portfolio 'as fast as we can. 'We're going to have to move very quickly because in the world of fashion, stuff moves very quickly,' he says. 'The stuff that is a hit right now might not be a year from now. We need to be fast to hit all the brands that we'd like to.' The first Oakley model, becoming available for pre-order on July 11, will be the US$499 limited edition pair. The US$399 versions – which come in grey, black, brown and clear colors – will be released in the coming months. There will be versions with clear, transition and polarised lenses. Like with the Ray-Bans, users can swap the lenses for prescription optics. The glasses will be available in the US, Canada, UK, Ireland, France, Italy, Spain, Austria, Belgium, Australia, Germany, Sweden, Norway, Finland, and Denmark, according to Meta. BLOOMBERG Join ST's Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.
