Rakesh Jhunjhunwala picks up nearly 3 crore shares in this PSU bank; should you buy?

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Ace stock picker Rakesh Jhunjhunwala has bought a 1.59% stake in public sector lender Canara Bank, BSE data showed on August 24. The latest shareholding data showed that Jhunjhunwala held 2,88,50,000 shares or 1.59% stake in the state-owned bank. He was not among the key shareholders of the bank as of June 30.

The country’s biggest institutional investor Life Insurance Corporation of India also increased its holding in the bank to 8.83% from 8.11% earlier.

The bank of Tuesday said it has approved allotment of over 16.73 crore shares in the Rs 2,500 crore qualified institutions placement (QIP) that closed a day earlier. The QIP opened on August 17 and closed on August 23, 2021.

The sub-committee of the board, capital planning process of the board of directors of the bank, at its meeting held on August 24, 2021, approved the allotment of 16,73,92,032 equity shares to eligible qualified institutional buyers at an issue price of Rs 149.35 per equity share, aggregating up to Rs 2,500 crore, Canara Bank said in a regulatory filing.

With this, the paid-up equity share capital of the bank stands increased to Rs 1,814.13 crore from Rs 1,646.74 crore, it said. A total of seven investors have been allotted more than 5% of the equity offered in the QIP issue.

Insurance behemoth LIC subscribed to 15.91%, BNP Paribas Arbitrage 12.55%, Societe Generale 7.97%, Indian Bank and ICICI Prudential Life Insurance – 6.37% each.

Morgan Stanley Asia (Singapore) Pte-ODI bought 6.16% of the shares issued in QIP and Volrado Venture Partners Fund II 6.05%.

Canara Bank last month posted a nearly three-fold jump in its net profit at Rs 1,177 crore for the quarter ended June 30, helped by a dip in the provision for bad loans. The public sector bank had posted a profit of Rs 406 crore in the year-ago quarter.

Shares of Canara Bank traded 1.54% lower at Rs 153.30 in the early trade on Wednesday. On the other hand, the benchmark BSE Sensex traded 117 points, or 0.21%, up at 56,076.

Emkay Global Financial Services is positive on Canara Bank with a target price of Rs 185.”We believe that merger-related concerns are largely behind and the bank should report a gradual improvement in its RoA/RoE to 0.4-0.5%/ 10-11% by FY23E-24E, led by better growth and moderate LLP.”