This Monday, the Stock exchanges BSE and NSE sought clarification from UCO Bank over a news report, titled “Merger of 4 PSU Banks – UCO Bank, Bank of Maharashtra, Central Bank and Punjab & Sind Bank”.
Stock Exchanges Ask Clarification For the Merger From UCO Bank
Interestingly, this query came post-market hours on July 1st from the bourses.
The state-owned lender termed the report as “factually incorrect” in response.
Further UCO mentioned, “All the decisions relating to merger shall be under the purview of the government. The bank has no role in the decision relating to the merger and as of now, it is not in receipt of any information from the government about the merger. Hence, the abovementioned news item is factually incorrect.”
Adding, “As of now, the bank has not received any communication from the government relating to the merger. Hence, this news does not hold good and is not expected to have any material impact on the bank.”
The UCO Bank shares ended at 0.16 percent lower at Rs 54.69 on the same day.
Major Stake Owned By The Government
When it comes to this stock, it has gained 36.69 per cent in 2024 so far and 94.63 per cent in a year.
It appears that 12.33 lakh shares changed hands on BSE on Monday.
Although, this figure was lower than the two-week average volume of 12.78 lakh shares.
Its turnover on the counter settled at Rs 6.81 crore, commanding a market capitalisation (m-cap) of Rs 65,387.14 crore.
The counter traded lower than the 5-day, 10-, 20-, 30-, 50-day and 100-day simple moving averages (SMAs) but higher than the 150-day and 200-day SMAs on a technical setup.
The counter’s 14-day relative strength index (RSI) stood at 45.35.
It is noteworthy here that a level below 30 is defined as oversold while a value above 70 is considered overbought.
Here, the company’s stock has a price-to-equity (P/E) ratio of 39.60 against a price-to-book (P/B) value of 2.39. With this, the earnings per share (EPS) stood at 1.38 with a return on equity of 6.05.
The bank’s Asset Liability Management Committee (ALCO) reviewed the benchmark rates and decided to upwardly revise the 3-month and 1-year MCLR (Marginal Cost of Funds-based Lending Rate) tenors, last month.
Please note that MCLR is the minimum rate below which a lender is not allowed to lend.
They have raised the 3-month MCLR to 8.5 percent and 1-year MCLR to 8.9 per cent.
The government held a 95.39 per cent stake in the PSU bank as of March 2024.
