Government gets financial bids for IDBI Bank

Gov­ern­ment offi­cials have repeatedly indic­ated that the divest­ment pro­cess will be com­pleted in FY26
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ADNAN ABIDI

The Department of Investment and Public Asset Management (DIPAM) on Friday said that it has received financial bids for the strategic sale of IDBI Bank. With this, the expectation of completing the stake sale in next couple of months has gone up.

“Financial bids have been received for the strategic disinvestment of the IDBI Bank. They will be evaluated as per the prescribed procedure,” DIPAM Secretary Arunish Chawla said in a social media post. Though bidders’ name has not been disclosed, but it is believed that Kotak Mahindra and Fairfax have submitted the bids. It is also believed that the reserve price will be decided after receipt of the financial bids, and before they are opened, will be known only to a small group of government officials.

Shares of IDBI Bank rose 3.86 per cent to close at ₹106.92 on Friday at BSE. At this price, mop up from sale proceed could reach over ₹70,000 crore, out of which government’s share would be over ₹33,000 crore. The gov­ern­ment will offload 30.48 per cent and LIC 30.24 per cent, leav­ing them with 15 per cent and 19 per cent stakes respect­ively.

Gov­ern­ment offi­cials have repeatedly indic­ated that the divest­ment pro­cess will be com­pleted in the fiscal year end­ing March 2026. The pro­ceeds from the sale are critical amid appre­hen­sions of a short­fall in over­all tax col­lec­tions.

Com­ple­tion of reg­u­lat­ory clear­ance means pro­spect­ive bid­ders have received ‘fit and proper’ approval from the Reserve Bank of India.

Per the pre­lim­in­ary inform­a­tion memor­andum (PIM) for invit­ing expres­sions of interest (EOI), in addi­tion to the eli­gib­il­ity cri­teria and the dis­qual­i­fic­a­tion con­di­tions, inter­ested parties (IPs) would also be sub­ject to a ‘fit and proper’ assess­ment by the RBI at the EoI stage.

Only IPs that sat­isfy this con­di­tion will be eli­gible for issu­ance of the RFP. The ‘suc­cess­ful bid­der’ would also be sub­ject to the RBI’s ‘fit and proper’ assess­ment.

Cabinet Committee on Eco­nomic Affairs (CCEA) approved the stra­tegic dis­in­vest­ment of IDBI Bank, along with trans­fer of man­age­ment con­trol on May 5, 2021. Fol­low­ing the PIM, mul­tiple EOIs were received and sent to the Home Min­istry and the RBI for ‘fit and proper’ assess­ment.

“After secur­ity clear­ance from the Min­istry of Home Affairs and the RBI’s eval­u­ation, the trans­ac­tion is now in the due dili­gence stage with short­l­is­ted bid­ders,” Fin­ance Min­is­ter Nirmala Sithara­man said in a writ­ten reply to the Lok Sabha on Decem­ber 1.

Published on February 6, 2026