State Bank of India selects six banks for upcoming QIP; shares down over 1%

Shares of State Bank of India (SBI) slipped on Thursday, June 26, amid reports that the country's largest lender is picking six banks for its upcoming ₹25,000 crore qualified institutional placement (QIP).

At 11:19 AM, shares of SBI were trading at ₹791.75 apiece, declining 1.04% on the National Stock Exchange. The stock had opened a t ₹802 per share and touched an intraday low of ₹791.55 apiece.

This is the first share sale for SBI in eight years. The bank had raised ₹15,000 crore by selling 522 million shares through QIP routhe in June 2017.

The QIP was approved by the bank’s board on May 3. If the bank raises ₹25,000 crore, it will be the largest share sale through a QIP in India.

Earlier this month, the lender had paid a dividend of ₹8,076.84 crore to the government for the financial year 2024-25.

The dividend cheque was presented to Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman by SBI Chairman C. S. Setty in the presence of Financial Services Secretary M. Nagaraju and Finance Secretary Ajay Seth.

SBI declared a dividend of ₹15.90 per share for the financial year 2024-25, higher than the ₹13.70 per equity share distributed for the previous year. SBI had paid a dividend of ₹6,959.29 crore to the government last year.

For the March quarter, the Mumbai-headquartered bank had reported a net profit of ₹18,642.59 crore in the January-March quarter (Q4 FY25), marking a decline of 10% from ₹20,698.35 crore logged in the corresponding quarter of the previous fiscal year on the back of higher provisioning for non-performing assets.

Its provisions for non-performing assets jumped 20% annually to ₹3,964.23 crore as against ₹3,293.94 crore registered in the year-ago period. Sequentially, provisions jumped 72%.

SBI's net interest income, or the difference between interest earned and interest expended, came in at ₹42,774.63 crore as against ₹41,655.19 crore in the year-ago period. Whole bank net interest margin (NIM) for Q4 FY25 stood at 3%.