State Bank of India (SBI), the country’s largest and most valuable government-owned bank. It now wants to raise up to ₹25,000 crore to support its growth and lending activities. This fundraising will be done through a Qualified Institutional Placement (QIP), a fast-track method to raise money by selling shares directly to the large investors like mutual funds, insurance companies and foreign investment firms, instead of going to the general public.
This fundraising will be SBI’s first QIP since 2017, when it raised ₹15,000 crore. This time, it’s planning to raise even more — and if it succeeds, it could become the biggest QIP ever in India.
To manage this large fundraising, six big investment banks, have been chosen: Kotak Mahindra Capital, ICICI Securities, HSBC Securities, Citigroup, Morgan Stanley and SBI Capital Markets. These 6 banks will help to manage the share sale.
Surprisingly, the six investment banks handling SBI’s massive ₹25,000 crore share sale will charge just ₹1 in fees as working on such a high-profile deal for SBI is is seen as a prestigious opportunity in the investment banking world. It gives these banks a chance to boost their reputation and improve their rankings in the investment banking world, even if they don’t make money from this deal.
The SBI board (the group that makes big decisions for the bank) approved the plan to raise money through this QIP on May 3, 2025. The exact date and amount SBI will raise aren’t final yet — they will decide that based on how the stock market is doing. But the share sale is likely to happen in the next couple of months.
One of the major buyers of these new shares is expected to be LIC (Life Insurance Corporation). LIC already owns 9.38% of SBI, and it’s likely to buy a large portion of the new shares, just like it did back in 2017.
Besides selling shares through the QIP, SBI is also getting more money this year in other ways:
- It is selling 13.19% of its shares in Yes Bank to a big Japanese bank called Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation (SMBC).
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It plans to sell its 5.19% stake in the National Stock Exchange (NSE) when the NSE becomes a publicly listed company (goes public).
SBI is in a strong position with 19% return on equity and 12% loan growth, but this fresh capital will help it grow further and stay financially healthy.