Yes Bank gains over 5% ahead of board meeting, GST penalty clarification

The share price of private lender Yes Bank finally saw a ray of hope on stock exchanges today, as it surged over 5.45% with an intraday high of Rs 238.60 per piece so far on BSE. However, at around 1303 hours, the bank was trading at Rs 231.90 per piece up by Rs 5.65 or 2.50%. Yesterday, on Nifty 50, the bank clocked a new low of Rs 215.85 per piece, and has managed to reverse its losses. The reason behind uptick was ahead of the board meeting held today to decide future course of the bank after RBI asked their chief Rana Kapoor to exit from MD & CEO post by January 2019 end. Also, some of the gains were led on the clarification over a report that stated - “RBI slaps Yes Bank with Rs. 38 Crore over GST Violations.”

Last week, Yes Bank stated that the Board of Directors of the bank is scheduled to meet on September 25, 2018. The news over Rana Kapoor’s exit has not been taken well by investors, as Yes Bank share price had tumbled by three-consecutive till September 24. 

Now everyone is keen on knowing the right candidate selected by Yes Bank who can walk in the footsteps left behind by Rana Kapoor. The man who established Yes Bank and built it up from scratch. It's a difficult task for Yes Bank to find a successor in such short period of time, of course. 

Earlier, IDFC Securities said, “Yes Bank will now focus on succession planning. Left to the bank, the first preference would be an internal candidate, most likely Rajat Monga, But the new candidate has to be approved by RBI. It is likely that RBI my actually insist on an external candidate.”

Meanwhile, few names like Paresh Sukthankar who has resigned from HDFC Bank on August 10, could be pursued as a successor of Rana Kapoor. However, Sukthankar is likely to take up a job for a social cause and unlikely to join a competing bank. 

Analysts at IDFC has cited NPA divergence created by Yes Bank as an outcome of RBI’s fury. 

According to IDFC, Rana’s successor will have to tweak the corporate lending strategy to eliminate divergences and divergent lending structures in the future, which may lead to slower growth in loans and fees for some time.

Interestingly, sources told Zee Business that, RBI may rethink Rana Kapoor’s tenure in Yes Bank and may actually allow an extention. 

Hence, everyone is watching what Yes Bank finally reveals in regards to Rana Kapoor and his successor. 

Moreover, slapping down rumours over GST penalty of up to Rs 38 crore imposed by RBI has surely added to today’s gain. 

In a notification to BSE, Yes Bank said, “Firstly, we would like to humbly submit that the heading used by "Financial Express" is inappropriate as RBI has not imposed any fines/ penalties over GST violations on the Bank.”

Further, Yes Bank mentioned, “We would like to submit that it is with reference to the Domestic Money Transfer (DMT) program, the Additional Commissioner of Central Tax & Cenh·al Excise, Mumbai Central (GST Office) had raised certain observations in the method to compute the applicable GST on transactions.”

It added, “Towards this, the GST office had computed an amount of INR 38.04 crore of GST /Service Tax, payable by the Bank. The Bank has taken legal views on record from Tax Experts confirming the Bank's interpretation of the law to be correct & tenable.”