YES Bank, first Indian company with over 50 lakh shareholders

Private sector lender YES Bank has become the first Indian company to have over 50 lakh shareholders, according to the shareholding pattern of the bank on March-end.

Tata Power was a far second with 38.5 lakh shareholders, followed by Reliance Industries with 33.6 lakh shareholders, according to the December 2022 shareholding disclosures.

The bank had 50.6 lakh shareholders as of March 31, 2023, all of whom were public shareholders. This was an increase from 48.1 lakh shareholders as of December 2022, most likely owing to the end of the three-year lock-in period for shareholders that held equity shares of the bank when it underwent the reconstruction scheme in March 2020.

The end of the lock-in period on March 13 allowed for more shares of the bank to be available for public trade. As such, the number of shareholders of the bank has been steadily increasing since the 17.9 lakh shareholders at the time of implementation of the YES Bank reconstruction scheme.

Since then, the total number of shares held has also more than doubled from 1,255 crore to 2,875 crore.