ICICI Bank sells 16.5% equity stake to FIIs

Mumbai: ICICI Bank has sold 16.5-per cent of its equity stake, representing 10.14 crore shares, to foreign institutional investors (FIIs). The shares were placed at Rs 130 per share.

The total value of the deal, executed through a number of block deals in the market, amounted to Rs 1,318.2 crore, fetching ICICI Bank Rs 1,193.8 crore in capital gains. The bank had acquired these shares at Rs 12.27 per share.

ICICI Bank director Kalpana Morparia says the shares were acquired by seven FIIs, of whom Singapore Investment Corporation (SIC) and Hamblin Watsa Investment Counsel, an affiliate of Lombard Insurance, together account for 85 per cent of the deal.

With this deal, the foreign investment in ICICI Bank, the largest private sector bank in India, will go up to 62 per cent (FII 36 per cent and foreign direct investment 26 per cent, including American depository ratios).

The shares, which were held by ICICI Bank Shares Trust, were sold at a discount of Rs 4 to 26 September 2002s market price. ICICI Bank closed at Rs 134 on the Bombay Stock Exchange, down 2.54 per cent from the previous close.

Besides Lombard and the SIC, the third major investor is Prudential Portfolio Managers, a part of Prudential of the UK. Both Lombard and Prudential are ICICIs partners in its life insurance ventures.

Morparia says the investors have long-term strategic interests, with some of them already equity partners in other ICICI ventures. These investments also assume significance, coming as they do at a time when the Indian economy is faced with several uncertainties and also in view of the recent change in the countrys rating outlook.