Mumbai: July 14, 2007 (Saturday) - The Central Bank of India, a 96-year-old institution, is reported to have fixed the price  of its initial public offering (IPO) from  Rs 85 to 102 per share of Rs 10 each, here today. This announcement, if unchanged, is likely to benefit the bank to raise the amount between Rs 680 and 816 crore.

“The proceeds of the issue will be utilized for beefing up our human resources department (HRD), expanding credit and increasing the use of technology to cover 80 of the businesses of the bank,” said HA Daruwalla, chairman and managing director of the bank.

The issue will bring down the Centre’s stake in the bank from 100 per cent at present to 80.2 per cent post-issue. About eight crore of shares are offer, the price of which would be arrived at through book-building route.

The issue will boost the bank's capital adequacy by one percentage point to 11.45 per cent after the issue, making it comfortable for the bank to meet Basel-II norms for provisioning to cushion risks ahead of the scheduled time of end-March 2009.

The bank has strong presence in Western and Northern regions of the country with over 50 per cent of the bank’s nearly 3,200 branches located in these regions. About 550 branches have been connected with core banking solution providing anywhere anytime banking.

The bank had deposits of Rs 82,776 crore and advances of Rs 53,630 crore at end-March 2006. The bank is planning to bring down the net non-performing assets below one per cent from the present 1.71 per cent in a year.