Bhattacharya hopes to kick off SBI’s mega merger by Oct-end

Mumbai, Sep 4 (PTI) SBI hopes to kick off merger of itsassociates as well as Bharatiya Mahila Bank with itself byOctober-end and try to complete the process by March next,making it the 45th largest lender globally in terms of assets. Early August, the central board of SBI had approved theacquisition of all the five associate banks and BharatiyaMahila Bank and finalised the swap ratios for the merger. "The merger process will start by October-end. Thegrievance committee will come back to us hopefully by the endof this month, thereafter we have to send it to the ReserveBank and then to the government for the final approval, whichmay probably take a month. Post which the merger can takeplace," SBI chairman Arundhati Bhattacharya told PTI in aninterview today. SBI has three listed associate banks–State Bank ofBikaner & Jaipur, State Bank of Mysore, State Bank ofTravancore, and two unlisted associates–State Bank of Patialaand State Bank of Hyderabad. Under the swap ratio for the merger proposal, SBBJshareholders will get 28 shares of SBI (Re 1 each) for every10 shares (Rs 10 each) or a ratio of 1:28, while SBM and SBTshareholders will get 22 shares of 10 SBI shares. In the case of Bharatiya Mahila Bank, 4,42,31,510 sharesof SBI will be swapped for every 100 crore of Rs 10. After the board approval, the lender had put in place agrievance redressal mechanism to provide an opportunity to itsshareholders to file their objections with regard to the shareswap ratios. It has given 21 calendar days for shareholders toregister their complaints. The grievance committee is headedby a high court judge and two chartered accountants. Bhattacharya said once the grievance committee sendsits report, the board will take a view on the recommendationsof the panel. After this, the bank will have to send theproposal to the Reserve Bank and then to the government fortheir final approvals. She said post-merger of five associate banks andBharatiya Mahila Bank, the government’s stake in the bank willcomes down to a little over 59.70 per cent from around 61.30per cent as of the June quarter. Bhattacharya expressed the hope that the bank will beable to finish the merger process by end of the currentfinancial year if everything goes smoothly. "The intention is to complete the merger by March2017," she said but was quick to add that there could be manyifs and buts but the effort is to complete by end of thisfinancial year. "We are a free society and if there are number oflegal challenges we may not get completed. But we will try ourlevel best to complete it. Already there is a PIL filed in aKerala court against the merger," she said. With merger of all the five associates and BMBL, SBIwill become a global-sized bank and could compete and will bethe 45th largest in the world with an asset of Rs 37 trillion.The combined entity will have 22,500 branches and 58,000 ATMsserving over 50 crore customers. SBI has now close to 16,500 branches, including 191foreign offices spread across 36 countries. SBI first mergedState Bank of Saurashtra with itself in 2008. Two years later,State Bank of Indore was merged. PTI HV BEN NP MRABMSRE