Current licence gives us enough space'

After three decades, a Bajaj group company is looking to list on the bourses. Bajaj Housing Finance, a 100 per cent subsidiary of India's largest non-banking finance company Bajaj Finance, has priced its public offering at ₹66-70 per equity share. It is looking to raise ¥6,560 crore, of which fresh issues are worth 3,560 crore and the offer for sale (OFS) is ₹3,000 crore. SANJIV BAJAJ, chairman and managing director, Bajaj Finserv, the holding company of Bajaj Finance, and ATUL JAIN, managing director, Bajaj Housing Finance, outlined the company's growth plans beyond the IPO in an interview with Manojit Saha and Subrata Panda in Mumbai. Edited excerpts:

What next after the Bajaj Housing Finance IPO? Any other subsidiary that you will look to list?

Bajaj: First, this IPO is a combination of the high growth we have seen in the housing finance arm and our desire to diversify the sources of capital as we continue to fund this growth and also the Reserve Bank of India's (RBI's) requirement as an upperlayer non-banking financial company (NBFC) to list before September 2025. As distinct from that, the two insurance companies are adequately capitalised. And their growth is being more than met by the internal capital they generate. So, there are no plans right now.

The housing finance company is growing at a rapid pace. Is the regulator comfortable with the pace?

Jain: Regulation in our assessment does not come only from growth. So far we never had a conversation with regulators where they have pointed out that we are growing very fast. I think the way regulators look at things is that they consider capital adequacy, corporate governance, the gross non-performing assets ratio, or whether you carry a systemic risk to the system overall or not. Compared to the market size, growth percentage is also a question of relativity. If you look from the inception till now, it will look like our growth percentage is very high. But from the overall market point of view, we remain very small.

Would you look to bring down your dependence on bank funding?