Warburg sells its 3.6 per cent stake in Kotak Mahindra Bank for Rs1,400 crore

Foreign private equity investor Warburg Pincus has sold its remaining 3.6 per cent stake in Kotak Mahindra Bank for around Rs1,400 crore amidst a rash of FII sales on the capital market.

The sale was concluded in block deals on the National Stock Exchange (NSE) although the buyer has not been traced, reports said.

The deal, advised by Kotak Institutional Advisers, were at an average price of Rs530 per share, market sources said.

The foreign fund, which owned about 44 million Kotak Mahindra shares as of end-December, had, on 2 February, sold 17.5 billion shares through stock market deals for around $170 billion.

For Wargbug, which picked up the Kotak Mahindra stake in 2004, the latest round of sales marks its exit from the Mumbai-based private sector lender.

Meanwhile, Citigroup had sold its entire 9.9 per cent stake in HDFC for $1.9 billon, and Khazanah Nasional of Malaysia quit Yes Bank for $110 million, in a booming market.

Another foreign fund, Carlyle, had sold 1.3 per cent stake in HDFC for about $270 million (Rs1,354 crore), and a week later, on 8 February, Temasek Holdings, the state investment group of the Singapore government, had also sold 1.4 per cent stake in the country's largest private lender ICICI Bank for $299 million, raking in over 150 per cent of their investments.

Kotak Bank shares closed 1.2 per cent up on the BSE at Rs530.95, after touching a high of Rs539 on a day when the BSE Sensex plunged 1.8 per cent or 309 points.