Consortium of investors put in joint bid to acquire PMC Bank

A diversified group of investors have jointly bid for the crisis-hit lender Punjab and Maharashtra Co-operative (PMC) Bank. The potential consortium of investors includes a German agency advertising pharmaceutical merchandise, two Mauritius-based offshore buyers and a Dubai-based entity, The Economic Times reported.

As per the report, the consortium, led by Indian businessman Surinder Mohan Arora, submitted a plan on February 1, 2021, for the reconstruction of the bank.

The overseas investors include Germany-based Alfa Pharma GmbH, Investment Fund (Mauritius), NexPact (Mauritius), Global Com Fin Investment LLC (Dubai). These entities along with Delhi-based Avtar Instalments will finalise their investments after getting an in-principle approval from RBI, the report said.

"Besides Arora, others in the consortium are Ideal Vitamin Food Products (a company Arora heads), Bhamasa Textile, and two individuals, Vikram Ahuja and Prakash Ganpathy Pai. They would (as per the proposal) bring in around Rs 500 crore if the plan is cleared. No decision has been taken on the three bids received," the ET reported.

The administrator for PMC Bank had set February 1 as the deadline for submitting final offers. The embattled bank had issued an expression of interest (EoI) on November 3, 2020, inviting investors for a revival of PMC Bank.

Earlier this month, Reserve Bank Governor Shaktikanta Das had confirmed that three investors had submitted their offers for reconstruction of PMC Bank and evaluation for those were underway. Digital payments platform BharatPe and financial services firm Centrum had jointly submitted a bid to acquire PMC Bank. Among others, steel baron Sanjeev Gupta's Liberty House Group was one of the three groups that had submitted EoIs to the RBI for acquiring.

The 37-year-old co-operative financial institution has been under RBI moratorium since September 23, 2019. The exercise is meant to find equity investors willing to take over its management in order to revive the beleaguered lender and resume its day-to-day operations. The central bank has said that the PMC Bank will examine viability and feasibility of these proposals, considering the best interest of the depositors, which would take some more time.

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