Housing Development Finance Corporation (HDFC) has been receiving a lot of interest for stake in wholly-owned subsidiary HDFC Credila Financial Services and the company is likely to take a call by June on any stake sale, CEO Keki Mistry said.
“We are willing to look at reducing our stake in the company from 100 per cent to 10 per cent and a variety of people are calling and making bids, so we are still collating all that,” Mistry said in an investor call on HDFC’s Q4 and FY23 results.
The strong interest shown for the company should ensure that any stake sale can be done in the next couple of months, he added.
“Hopefully, by the end of June, we should arrive on some finality on how to close this, assuming that there is no extension from RBI in terms of onboarding new customers,” he said, adding that HDFC will be engaging with the RBI to resolve the issue of new customer onboarding.
Ahead of the merger with HDFC Bank, the Reserve Bank of India has asked HDFC to reduce its stake in HDFC Credila to 10 per cent within two years without onboarding new customers.
Seeking regulator’s nod
HDFC has reportedly written to the regulator seeking permission for new onboarding till it finds a buyer. The plea is on the grounds that while HDFC has been trying to sell its stake for over a year and had received interest from private equity and sovereign funds, discussions were put on hold as the lender was awaiting regulatory clarity on the merger.
Jefferies Financial Group has been appointed to manage the sale of HDFC Credila which is expected to be valued at around $1 billion, as per reports.