On Friday, Catholic Syrian Bank filed its draft red herring prospectus with SEBI for its initial public offering (IPO), a Bloomberg report said. The date of the listing is not known.

The private lender, promoted by Canadian billionaire Prem Watsa, is looking to raise capital through a fresh issue of shares worth Rs 30 crore apart from an offer-for-sale of 1.98 crore shares by existing shareholders, the prospectus said.

The lead managers to issue will be the Axis Capital Ltd. and IIFL Securtities Ltd. The shares are proposed to be listed on NSE as well as BSE.

The 98-year old bank had previously filed for an IPO in 2015 to raise Rs 400 crore but never took off.

The lender has runs 414 branches, mainly in South India with a customer base of around 1.3 million. It has 277 ATMs spread across 16 states and four union territories, as of 31 March.

It posted a loss of Rs 197.4 crore for the financial year 2018-19 as against a loss of Rs 97.44-crore loss for the year before. As of 31 March 2019, it had deposits worth Rs 15,214 crore, while loans and advances stood at Rs 10,615 crore. The bank said that it is focused on implementing "strategic changes" to change its business model to a "full-service new-age private sector bank". It is also going to re-brand itself as CSB Bank Ltd.

Last year, Watsa's Fairfax India Holdings Corporation received special permission from the Reserve Bank of India to acquire a 51 percent stake in the Thrissur-based private bank for around Rs 440 crore. RBI also instructed it list its shares by 30 September 2019. It is the first time that the central bank approved of equity investment into a domestic private sector bank by a foreign firm.