IDBI Bank plans to sell its equity holdings in 229 Indian unlisted and unquoted Indian companies within the next 15 days.
IDBI's stake in these companies will be sold under individual offers and no one can bid for the whole portfolio in consolidation.
These investments span almost the whole industry spectrum from containers to paper to petrochemicals to textiles to electronics and to telecom.
The bank could be cleaning up what appears to be dud portfolio, said those tracking the banking sector.
“It is never too late to do spring cleaning and remove dust accumulated over a couple of decades,” said Mr Arun Kejriwal, Founder, KRIS Research.
“One hopes that the value of these investments at cost is made public in the accounts at some point of time.”
As on March 31 2011, IDBI Bank had an equity portfolio of Rs 3,277.37 crore as against Rs 2,698.3 crore on March 31 2010.
However, the bank did not give a break up of its investments in quoted and unquoted equity in its annual report.