Awaiting government to raise sectoral FDI limit
ICICI Bank has declared that it could make initial public offerings in four subsidiaries or sell stake in its insurance ventures, once the Government of India raises sectoral FDI limit – reported Economic Times.
Chanda Kochhar, managing director of ICICI, said: “The bank would decide on it once the laws are amended to hike foreign direct investment in insurance sector from 26% to 49%. This would help create value for the stake holders. ICICI Bank’s share price had increased three times in the last six months to about INR750 a share. At this price, ICICI’s market capitalisation is about INR800 billion.
She further clarified that all the four (ICICI Prudential Life, ICICI Lombard, ICICI Securities and ICICI Home Finance) possibility exists, but nothing have been finalised yet.
She was non-committal on any preferential treatment for its existing shareholders in the IPOs saying they would anyway share the value unlocked from this exercise, as quoted in the newspaper.