India Must End Yes Bank’s Theater of the Absurd
The only choice is to force a merger with State Bank of India or run the risk of broader financial contagion.
It’s time to stop this farce before it ends in tragedy.
Photographer: Himanshu Bhatt/NurPhoto/Getty
Before it results in a tragedy for all of India’s banking, regulators need to step in and end the farce called Yes Bank Ltd. The latest shenanigans make it very clear that the authorities need to stop being spectators — and act.
The original cast has vanished. The co-founder who drove the country’s fifth largest private-sector bank into a ditch of bad corporate loans has sold out. Institutional shareholders are heading for the exit. Retail investors left holding more and more of the stock are waiting for lifesaving capital. The new management keeps dangling improbable funding options — ranging from an unnamed global technology firm to a Canadian businessman living in a motel — only to strike them off the list of white knights.