YES Bank trades lower for fourth straight day; stock nears 52-week low

Shares of YES Bank were trading lower for the fourth straight day, down 6.6 per cent at Rs 29.20 on the BSE on Wednesday on the back of heavy volumes.

The private sector lender's stock is trading close to its 52-week low of Rs 29.05, touched on October 1, 2019 and also its lowest level since August 2009 on the BSE. In the past six trading days, the stock has slipped 21 per cent, as compared to 3.4 per cent decline in the S&P BSE Sensex.

On February 12, 2020, YES Bank had said it will publish its unaudited financial results for the quarter and nine month period ending December 31, 2019 on or before March 14, 2020 "as the bank is currently engaged in capital raising".

The bank announced that it has received a non-binding expression of interest for capital infusion from new investors, which is subject to certain conditions and the receipt of regulatory approvals. According to analysts, the ability to secure these approvals and the quantum, timing, and conditions of the proposed capital infusion will be key monitorables.

YES Bank has seen deterioration in asset quality over the last few quarters due to stress in some of its large corporate accounts, delayed resolution in existing non-performing assets (NPAs) as well as high amount of slippages.

Meanwhile, rating agency Icra has downgraded YES Bank's credit rating with negative outlook due to the continued delay in the capital raising by the bank.

This apart, ICRA expects a further increase in the quantum of stressed exposures and reported non-performing exposures, given the limited resolutions and recoveries. Accordingly, the quantum of capital requirement is also expected to increase from earlier estimates. The bank had earlier announced a capital raise of up to $2 billion in November 2019, which was upsized from the amount ($1.2 billion) announced earlier in October 2019. However, the same has not yet materialized, it said.

“In absence of the equity capital raise, the bank’s core capital buffers continue to be at low levels and provide lower cushion to absorb any losses on account of higher provisioning requirement due to weakening of asset quality,” Care Ratings said in press release on February 24, 2020.

At 11:12 am, YES Bank was trading 5 per cent lower at Rs 29.75 on the BSE, against 0.61 per cent fall in the S&P BSE Sensex. The counter has seen huge trading volumes with a combined 107 million shares changing hands on the NSE and BSE so far.