UCO Bank describes reports of takeover bid by SBI as baseless

There was news that the State Bank of India (SBI) had evinced interest in acquiring UCO Bank and another nationalized bank, Dena Bank, in a bid to acquire their businesses.

A statement was realized from Kolkata based public sector lender, UCO Bank describing the acquiring process as baseless.
UCO Bank Executive Director, Virendra Kumar Dhingra said, "There haven't been any talks with SBI in this regard. Everything that has come out in the media about the takeover bid is baseless. We came to know about the 'takeover' from newspapers."

Dena Bank's chairman, P L Gairola, however, was not available for comments on the issue.

UCO Bank showed a significant improvement in its bottom line, which has a total business of Rs 1,18,000 crore, as on September 30, 2007, with nearly 1,880 branches across the country and an ATM network of 235.

The bank's total advances as on September 30, stood at Rs 47,000 crore while its deposits were quoted at around Rs 71,000 crore.

UCO bank showed a year-on-growth of 17 per cent in credit and 22 per cent growth in deposits in FY07.

Dhingra informed that at present government has 75 per cent of stake in the UCO Bank which is likely to come down to 59-60 per cent after a proposed Follow-on Public Offer of the Bank, probably early next year.