Saturday, February 19 2005 22:25 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

New Delhi: Public sector Oriental Bank of Commerce (OBC) will go for second public offering to raise about Rs 2,000 crore anytime after March 15, its chairman B D Narang announced today (Feb 19, 2005).

"We received the approval from the Finance Ministry yesterday," Narang said, adding the public offer, through book-building process, will be for 5.8 crore new shares.

This will bring down Government equity in the bank by 15 per cent to 51 per cent from the present 66 per cent, he said at an interactive session with 'Forum of Financial Writers'.

Narang ruled out any buy-back of shares by the Government. Nor is there any plan to raise Tier-II capital, he added.

Going by the current price of OBC scrip, ruling at about Rs 308, the offer of 5.8 crore shares should fetch over Rs 1,800 crore.

The timing of the offer would depend on the approval from market regulator SEBI and the due-diligence process takes three weeks and "we will be ready to hit the market anytime after March 15." Narang said.