Public sector lender Bank of Baroda or BoB will issue up to 15 crore fresh equity shares to its staff under the Employee Share Purchase Scheme (ESPS), the bank said on Tuesday. The decision was taken by the compensation committee of the board at its meeting held on Tuesday, the bank said in a regulatory filing. 

"The compensation committee considered and approved Bank of Baroda ESPS-2019 for issue of up to 15 crore new equity shares to all eligible employees of the bank at a discount of 20%," the bank said.

The proposed issue price to Bank of Baroda employees is ₹75.47 per share. "To issue shares at a discount of 20.00% on the price arrived at average of the weekly high and low of the volume weighted average prices of the equity shares quoted on NSE during the two weeks preceding the cut-off date of 4th September 2019, " the Bank of Baroda said.

Bank of Baroda is India’s third largest bank with a network of over 9,500 branches and has over 85,000 employees.

Bank of Baroda shares were trading nearly 1% higher at Rs.92.20 on BSE today in noon trade.

On 1 April, 2019, Bank of Baroda merged with two other state-owned banks, Dena Bank and Vijaya Bank.

In the June quarter, Bank of Baroda reported net profit of Rs.710 crore, compared to a loss of Rs.49 crore in the same period last year on the back lower provisions. This was the first quarterly earnings report of the merged bank.

On a standalone basis, the bank had posted a net profit of Rs.528 crore in June quarter.

Last week, the government announced a series of mergers involving 10 public sector banks to strengthen the banking sector struggling under bad debt. The mergers will cut to 12 the total number of state-owned banks from 27 in 2017. #casansaar (Source - PTI, LiveMint)