There was a time when Yes Bank’s share price level stood in triple-digit, however, that was even before traces of the Covid-19 pandemic could scare the world. But in the current time, Yes Bank shares are traded even below ₹20. However, this has not stopped Yes Bank from becoming the most owned stock by shareholders. That being said, the bank has created a history of becoming the first to record more than 50 lakh shareholders in India.
In fact, this Mumbai-based private sector lender has more shareholders than the big 3 companies Reliance Industries (RIL), Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), and HDFC Bank. It is also the only bank to hold this record.
As per the latest shareholding pattern, Yes Bank has about 50.57 lakh shareholders by end of the March 31, 2023, fiscal year. On the other hand, RIL has over 33.62 lakh shareholders, TCS with over 25.56 lakh shareholders, and HDFC Bank has more than 22.90 shareholders.
Compared to its peers, even the most praised private banks such as ICICI Bank and Kotak Bank do not have this much quantum of shareholders.
By end of March 2023 fiscal, ICICI Bank’s shareholders are to the tune of 17.80 lakh, while Kotak has meager over 5.82 lakh shareholders. Axis Bank has 8.46 lakh shareholders.
Yes Bank’s largest investor State Bank of India (SBI) has over 27.97 lakh shareholders.
As of March 31, 2023, SBI holds 26.14% of Yes Bank, while LIC holds a 4.34% stake. Axis Bank and ICICI Bank also have a piece of Yes Bank shares aggregating 1.57% and 2.61% respectively. IDFC First Bank holds merely 1% of Yes Bank.
On Monday, Yes Bank’s share price closed at ₹15.32 apiece down by 0.33% on BSE.
In five years, the stock has tumbled by around 94.5%. The stock was near ₹275 level by the end of the fiscal period March 31, 2019. Yes Bank’s shares took a massive blow in mid-2019 as it entered into a liquidity crunch. The problem was that Yes Bank could not restore substantial provisions for its mountain of non-performing assets coupled with its inability to raise adequate funds. The bank even entered into a 3-year lock-in period. However, the bank got a lifeline in 2020 when RBI quickly introduced a restructuring plan which also included a special liquidity window.
Last year, in December, Yes Bank completed the assignment of its stressed assets loan portfolio to the tune of a whopping ₹48,000 crore to J.C. Flowers Asset Reconstruction (JC Flowers ARC). This is by far the single largest transaction of sale of non-performing assets in the country’s banking system. With this, Yes Bank is expected to benefit from the recoveries in excess of the current considerations.
