J&K Bank today allotted shares to the staff under its recently issued J&K Bank Employees Stock Purchase Scheme (ESPS – 2021).The Bank’s Compensation Committee of Board of Directors in its meeting held today allotted over 5.17 Cr equity shares to the 8961 eligible employees of the Bank against the share subscription amount received under its ESPS 2021.Notably, the ESPS got an overwhelming response from the Bank staff resulting in the over-subscription of the issue and the shares have now been allotted to the employees in proportion to the already laid-down eligibility criteria.In his remarks on the occasion, Bank’s CMD R K Chhibber said, “The over-subscription of ESPS-2021 is quite a powerful validation of Bank’s strategic vision from its own staff reaffirming strongly that the Bank is working in a focus manner to meet its business objectives while moving ahead to realize its institutional vision.”“Going forward, such a display of unwavering confidence will definitely send a strongly positive que to the market participants once we proceed ahead to raise Rs 1000 Cr further through Follow-up Public Offer (FPO)/Qualified Institutional Placement (QIP)”, he added.He further said, “I would like to emphasize that in terms of percentage of subscription, this has been the most successful ESPS floated by any public sector bank in the recent past.”Pertinently, in a major boost to its capital adequacy, the Bank also got Rs 500 Cr last week from the Government of J&K UT as capital to acquire over 16.76 Cr shares further in the Bank. The UT Government had got a nod from the country’s regulator i.e. RBI to acquire these shares on preferential basis. With the infusion of Rs 500 Cr, J&K UT Government’s equity stake in the Bank rose to over 74 per cent.“In terms of commitment to meet our institutional objectives, we along with our promoter and major stakeholder are moving in tandem as the capital infusion from government and successful issue of ESPS-2021 will go a long way in bolstering the confidence of all other stakeholders, pushing the Bank to accomplish greater goals in future”, CMD had said on the occasion.
