Lakshmi Vilas Bank gets merger offer

Mumbai: Capital-starved private sector lender Lakshmi Vilas Bank, whose chief executive was voted out by shareholders recently, on Thursday said it has received a non-binding offer from Aion-backed non-banking finance firm Clix Group for a merger.

The old-generation Chennai-based private sector bank, which has been on the lookout for an investor and capital for long, was jolted on September 25 when its shareholders voted out seven directors of its board, including CEO S Sundar and promoters K R Pradeep and N Saiprasad.

Following this, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) appointed a three-member team to run the bank under Meeta Makhan as chairperson and Shakti Sinha and Satish Kumar Kalra as members.

In an exchange filing on Thursday, the bank's Chief Financial Officer K Hariharan said, "Further to the process of considering and evaluating the proposed amalgamation with Clix Capital Services, Clix Finance and Clix Housing Finance, we are glad to inform that the bank has received an indicative non-binding offer from the Clix Group." The filing did not elaborate that.

The Clix Group is backed by the private equity major Aion Capital. On September 15, LVB said it had agreed for an amalgamation with the mid-sized non-banking lender Clix Capital Group in an all-share deal. Earlier, the bank had tried to merge with Srei Capital and then with Indiabulls Housing Finance, but the RBI objected to the merger proposals.