HSBC Mauritius to sell stakes in Axis, Yes

HSBC Securities Mauritius, supposed to be a participatory note entity or facilitating one, has opened the book to sell its entire stake in Axis Bank and Yes Bank, various sources confirmed on Wednesday.

The stake sale will raise up to Rs2,450 crore for the seller, whose identity is yet unknown.

As many as 1.96 crore shares in Axis Bank are to be sold between Rs950.9 and Rs970.9 per share, and 1.68 crore shares in Yes Bank will be offered for Rs318.1 to Rs324.8 per share.

That works out to about 4.75% equity in each bank.

A source said the deal will happen on Thursday morning and buyers will be decided on a first come, first serve basis.

On Wednesday, shares of Axis Bank ended at Rs1,000.80 a share, down 0.24%, while shares of Yes Bank ended at Rs334.65 per share, down 1.93%, on the Bombay Stock Exchange.

In March, Khazanah Nasional, Malaysia’s state investment arm, sold its block holding of 4.17% in Yes Bank for around $110 million, or about two-and-a-half times its original investment value.

The buyers were Indian institutional players, who bought it from the retail platform, a person close to the bank said. Khazanah had purchased shares in Yes Bank through the secondary market in 2007.

In February, global financial services giant Citigroup, sold its entire stake in the Housing Development Finance Corporation (HDFC) for $ 1.9 billion (around Rs9,327 crore). Prior to that, Carlyle sold 1.3% of its stake in HDFC for about $270 million (Rs1,354 crore).