Not Sameer Gehlaut, LIC is largest shareholder in Indiabulls Housing: CEO

His shareholding compared to that is relatively lesser or smaller. He has indicated to both the board and his communication to the stock exchanges as well that he intends to remain a long term financial investor, said Gagan Banga, CEO of Indiabulls Housing. Edited excerpts:

The board has taken some important decisions regarding changes of top management. What is next for Indiabulls Housing Finance?
From a corporate restructuring perspective Indiabulls Housing is a standalone company. The board is absolutely independent in order to further augment the independence of the board whatever overlaps were there at my level with other companies they have also been sorted out and with that some all those other companies.

So as we speak Indiabulls Housing is a standalone financial institution. As part of our corporate strategy what we are doing is we are looking at partnerships both at an operational level as well as at a strategic level. At the operational level, we have partnerships with seven banks.


On the wholesale funding side, I had indicated as part of Indiabulls 3.0 that we would recommence that I am happy to inform that one of the funds with the global real estate focus private equity major has already been approved by SEBI, in other fund has been applied to SEBI and should hopefully receive the next SEBI regulatory approvals in the first quarter.

So from the first quarter of fiscal 2023 those partnerships will also be in motion on the retail side the co-lending partnerships are already in motion and we would be continuing to engage with institutional investors. I think that during the first half of fiscal 2023 you will see material presence of institutional investors on the board of Indiabulls Housing so that is the direction at the corporate level that we are headed towards.

Sameer Gehlaut has no other managerial position but is still the single largest shareholder. Any further dilution expected and the next round of investments by institution is possible?
He is no longer the largest shareholder, Life Insurance Corporation is the largest shareholder of the company and financial institutions are as a lot the dominant shareholders holding over 40% of the company.

His shareholding compared to that is relatively lesser or smaller. He has indicated to both the board and his communication to the stock exchanges as well that he intends to remain a long term financial investor. He has been associated with the company, he understands its potential and therefore he has no desire to sell at this point in time.

It is his personal equity, the company has no rule or say on that. I am just reading of the communication that he has exchanged with the board at the time of his resignation as well as what he is fine with the stock exchanges.

Point is taken that he remains only as a financial investor on board but you did hint about the fact that there is more investment which is possible from other institutions. So are you looking at a fresh round of fundraising and what could be the amount?
There are a bunch of options being worked out. We would in an ideal scenario given our high capitalisation levels not want to have significant dilution at the holding company or the listed company level. We are working with bankers on a multiple number of options as well as with several funds. As soon as something gets firmed up we will surely inform the market.

At this point in time, it is still work in progress but I can confirm to you that those discussions are at a drawing board stage as we speak and as I already said I am looking forward to significant institutional presence on the board in terms of their representation which would obviously mean that their shareholding has to one way or the other materially increase.

When we talk about the business, can you talk about NPA and decline in profitability?
Business aside from January which was impacted for practically everyone given the COVID impact and all of that, February and March are turning out to be pretty good months as far as business is concerned on various aspects so we continue to grow our retail disbursals. We continue to make giant leaps as far as technical integration with banks is concerned, on the co-lending side as well as we continue to run down our wholesale or the chunky part of our portfolio.

On all three fronts there is a great progress which makes me strongly believe that by end of this quarter the AUM would have touched its bottom and as I have indicated at the end of last quarter from quarter one fiscal 2023 we should be able to specifically set up a growth target and over a period of time the growth that we are targeting is 15% to 20% which should certainly start coming from quarter one fiscal 2023 while the RBI since then has relaxed the implementation of the asset clarification that they have provided the company continues to adopt the same and would not be going back so NPA levels should be as I have been indicating in a range of plus minus 50 bps so where they close as of December 31st so nothing to be overly concerned.