Yes Bank: Worst-performing bank stock is now seeing world’s biggest surge

YES Bank, the world’s worst-performing lender in 2019, has posted the globe’s biggest gain over the past month.

Its shares have rallied about 50 per cent — the biggest gain among global peers valued at more than $1 billion — after embattled founder Rana Kapoor was forced to sell his holdings in October and a new management team promised fresh capital and lower bad loans. The surge helped pare the annual loss in the Mumbai-based lender’s shares to 63 per cent.

The recovery will be a relief for new Chief Executive Officer Ravneet Gill, who’s been courting investors to revive the bank. India’s billionaire investor Rakesh Jhunjhunwala this month bought shares of Yes Bank, after the lender announced a binding offer from an unidentified global investor to inject $1.2 billion.

Gill is rushing to raise funds. Latest results released this month show Yes Bank swung to a loss in the September quarter and its bad-loan ratio rose.

“Capital is of utmost importance to the bank and we want the money to be in the bank by December,” Gill told reporters after the results. “Once we get the capital it will run us for 24 months.”