Virendra Pandit
Mumbai: By Monday next week (July 3) all signboards, offices, and branches of HDFC Ltd will be repainted and rebranded as HDFC Bank, with which India’s leading home financing company merged on Saturday.
Branding at more than 500 offices branches of HDFC Ltd started on Saturday and they got the HDFC Bank’s look on the first day of operations as the merged entity, officials said, adding the whole exercise will be completed within 24 hours.
With this, HDFC Ltd, the parent of the country’s largest private sector lender, merged into HDFC Bank, with boards of directors of the two entities clearing the plan first presented on April 4 last year.
HDFC Ltd, the largest pure-play home financier, ceased to exist 44 years after it was founded in 1979. After the merger, more than 3,500 employees of HDFC Ltd have been integrated into HDFC Bank.
The USD 40-billion merger, the largest such deal in Indian corporate history, is driven by a changing regulatory landscape, which limited the advantages for HDFC continuing as a non-bank lending entity, the media reported.
Post-merger, HDFC Bank will become the fourth most valued lender in the world, and narrow the gap by asset size with state-owned SBI to become the second largest Indian bank.
The total business of the merged entity stood at Rs 41 lakh crore at the end of March 2023. With the merger, the net worth of the entity would be over Rs 4.14 lakh crore. The combined profit of the two entities was to the tune of about Rs 60,000 crore at the end of March 2023.
Now, HDFC Bank will be 100 percent owned by public shareholders, and existing shareholders of HDFC will own 41 percent of the bank. Every HDFC Ltd shareholder will get 42 shares of HDFC Bank for every 25 shares they hold.
HDFC Bank’s Managing Director and CEO Sashidhar Jagadishan said the combined strength will help create a holistic ecosystem of financial services.
“We’re truly happy to welcome the talented team of HDFC Ltd into the HDFC Bank family. I believe our journey will be defined by agility, adaptability, and a relentless pursuit of excellence. As we navigate the path ahead, we will embrace challenges as opportunities, learn from our experiences, and strive to be the benchmark of success and integrity in the financial services industry,” he said.