India's second-largest public sector bank, Punjab National Bank (PNB), has raised ₹ 1,799.99 crores by its latest Qualified Institutional Placement (QIP) offering which saw the bank issue 53.33 crore shares at ₹ 33.75 per share, nearly a 5% discount to the floor price of ₹ 35.51 per share, to institutional investors.

The QIP issue opened up on Monday and closed on Friday and observed several marquee institutional investors. According to the sources, Life Insurance Corporation took shares worth ₹400 crores, Societe Generale ₹417 crores, BNP Paribas Arbitrage ₹240 crores, and Morgan Stanley Asia (Singapore) Pte ₹ 150 crores, getting allotments of more than 5% of the equity shares offered in the QIP. Through this QIP PNB was looking to raise around ₹ 1800 crore while including the option of retaining oversubscription of up to ₹ 600 crores. This was the first QIP issue offered by the bank during the current fiscal. Earlier in December 2020, PNB had raised around ₹ 3,788 crores through a QIP, falling short of its then target of ₹ 7000 crores. The amount raised through that QIP included ₹ 1,500 crore investment from LIC. Earlier CH.SS Mallikarjuna Rao, MD & CEO, PNB, in February this year announced that the bank was looking for an opportune time to raise the balance ₹3,212 crores through QIP.

PNB had reported a net profit of ₹ 1,435 crores for the nine months ended December 31, 2020. The bank had recorded a net profit of ₹ 506 crores in the third quarter ended December 31, 2020, down 18.5% as compared to the net profit of ₹ 621 crores recorded in the previous quarter.