State Bank of India has proposed to offer sharemarket purchase scheme for all its employees which could raise additional equity capital, between Rs 800 crore and Rs 1,200 crore, for the country’s largest lender.

“We are planning to offer employees share purchase scheme and not employees stock option scheme,” SBI Chairperson Arundhati Bhattacharya said here today during her first visit to the city after taking over as the chief of the bank.

Economy more stable today; new bank licences soon: FM “We have written to the government on this. We cannot say about the valuation now, but the total amount will be worth Rs 800-1,200 crore,” she said without divulging details on how different would be the bank’s scheme from traditional Esops.

How much the bank’s equity capital increases would depend on the valuation at which the bank would offer shares to its employees. Bhattacharya was talking to reporters at the Tata Medical Centre at Rajarhat, New Town, where the bank donated about Rs 6 crore towards part cost of a new Pet CT scan machine at the hospital. She said the share purchase scheme would be offered to all bank employees, irrespective of their posts.

“The bank will offer shares to employees at a discount from market price. We hope to implement this in the next fiscal (2014-15), subject to approval,” Bhattacharya said. The bank had 2.23 lakh employees on its rolls as on December 2013. On selling of NPAs, Bhattacharya said there were some plans regarding this and remained optimistic on recovery. “You are only concentrating on the 5 percent. But, we have also to concentrate on the 95 per cent of the credit,” she added.

On March 07, 2014, State Bank of India closed at Rs 1648.75, up Rs 72.55, or 4.60 percent. The 52-week high of the share was Rs 2469.25 and the 52-week low was Rs 1452.90. The company’s trailing 12-month (TTM) EPS was at Rs 149.34 per share as per the quarter ended December 2013. The stock’s price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio was 11.04. The latest book value of the company is Rs 1325.34 per share. At current value, the price-to-book value of the company is 1.24.