SBI to hold mega e-auction of Rs1,300-cr stressed assets

State Bank of India (SBI), the country's top lender, on Friday said that it has planned a mega e-auction of its stressed assets worth Rs1,300 crore, from 12 June.

The bank will put up for auction around 480 distressed assets across cities, including offices, shops, apartments and factory buildings located in around 40 cities such as Chennai, Kolkata, Mumbai, Bhubaneshwar, Hyderabad, Lucknow, Kanpur, Ludhiana and Dehradun.

The details of the properties have been put up on the SBI website.

''We will be auctioning a total of around 480 properties, which include around 250 residential properties and around 230 commercial properties,'' reports quoted an said official of the State Bank of India as saying.

''These properties include assets of retail and small and medium enterprises (SMEs) located around 40 different cities,'' the report added.

SBI had, earlier on 14 March, put on auction around 300 residential and commercial properties worth around Rs1,200 crore. The sale, however, did not proceed as expected and the bank could sell only about 130 properties, realising around Rs100 crore.

Last month, SBI chairperson Arundhati Bhattacharya had said that the bank would continue to hold such e-auctions every quarter.

For the March quarter, SBI's gross non-performing assets (NPAs) improved to 4.25 per cent from 4.95 per cent in the same period last year while net NPAs improved to 2.12 per cent from 2.57 per cent from the year-ago period.

The government is worried over the rising non-performing assets of public sector banks some of which have plunged into a loss during the fourth quarter while others have seen a sharp decline in profit. The finance ministry has directed banks to take urgent steps to recover their dues from defaulters.

NPAs of banks touched a whopping Rs3,00,611 crore as of December 2014.

Public sector banks account for the major chunk of the Rs2,62,402 crore of bad loans as they have large exposure to big infrastructure projects hit by the economic slowdown.

Private sector banks, which are more cautious in lending, have non-performing loans worth a combined Rs38,209 crore on their books.