PNB Housing Finance (PNB HFL) will raise Rs 35,000 crore debt as its deal with Carlyle Group has hit a legal hurdle with the Securities Appellate Tribunal (SAT) pronouncing a split verdict in the matter.
The mortgage lender will seek shareholders’ approval for the fundraising in its annual general meeting (AGM) scheduled on September 3, it said in a regulatory filing. The approval has been sought to issue redeemable, secured or unsecured non-convertible debentures aggregating to Rs 35,000 crore in one or more tranches.
This comes two days after SAT gave a split verdict to the lender’s appeal against Securities and Exchange of Board of India’s (Sebi) directive that restrained PNB HFL from going ahead with the preferential allotment of shares to a bunch of investors unless the valuation was done by an independent valuer.
The mortgage lender now has the option to move the Supreme Court. The preferential issue of equity shares and warrants aggregating to Rs 4,000 crores to investors recommended by the board of PNB HFL “will be made post receipt of regulatory/shareholders/legal approvals,” the lender said in its annual report.
In May, PNB HFL had announced preferential allotment of shares worth Rs 3,200 crore and Rs 800 crore worth of warrants to the Carlyle group, Aditya Puri’s family investment vehicle Salisbury Investments, General Atlantic and Alpha Investments at Rs 390 apiece.
It was deemed “unfair” to public shareholders of the company a week later by proxy advisory firm SES. On June 18, Sebi directed the company to halt the allotment unless the valuation is done by an independent valuer.
The mortgage lender then moved SAT, challenging the regulator’s directive, and the appellate tribunal allowed the company to conduct its scheduled EGM but with the caveat that the outcome of the vote would not be disclosed.
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