NEWS

SBI Mutual Fund may be next from SBI stable to go for IPO

SBI MF will have to take its JV partner Amundi on board before it decides to go for IPO; SBI General will have to grow for better valuation before it lists, Rajnish Kumar said.

MUMBAI: SBI Mutual Fund, which is the largest mutual fund in terms of assets under management (AUM), will most likely be the next to be listed from the State Bank of India stable.

SBI will have to take its joint venture partner Amundi, a French company, on board before it decides to go for a public float. Discussions have been on but nothing is finalised yet.

"The asset management company has become number 1 in India. But we have Amundi as our joint venture partner. We have to take them on board. Discussions are on but nothing is final as of now," Rajnish Kumar told Indianbankingnews.com in an interview just before his retirement as SBI chairman. Amundi is Europe's largest asset manager.

SBI MF is India's top fund manager with assets worth Rs 4.21 lakh crore, as per September data.

SBI's other big subsidiary, SBI General Insurance, has not reached the size for listing and it may have to wait for a longer time.

"SBI General has still not reached the valuation level. We are in the process of building the business. We have to grow it to a higher level before we decide to list it," Kumar said.

SBI General has chalked out plans to reach a market share of 8.5% by March 2021. The 25% growth it clocked in the first five months of the year against an industry growth rate of 5% was helped by the uptick in the motor business, which is its single largest business portfolio. At the end of the June quarter, the firm has an AUM of Rs 77,725 crore with a 7.3% market share among private players.

"Both the asset management company and the insurance company will get listed eventually," Kumar said.

SBI has been unlocking value in its subsidiaries. SBI Card went for an initial public offering (IPO) in March. It is the only credit card company to be listed in India.

Ever since its listing, the shares of SBI Cards and Payments have rallied 32%. Its shares closed at Rs 898 on BSE on Tuesday pushing its market capitalisation to Rs 84,418.68 crore, nearly 50% of the market value of parent SBI. The market cap of SBI, India's largest bank, stood at Rs 1,81,169.61 crore, with its share price closing at Rs 203 on BSE.

SBI listed its life insurance business in 2017. It offloaded another 4.5% stake in SBI Life via offer for sale (OFS) route to raise Rs 3,500 crore in September 2019 to bring down promoter shareholding to comply with regulatory requirements.