Temasek sells stake in ICICI Bank for Rs 1,500 cr

Singapore government's investment armTemasek Holdings' unit Allamanda Investments on Wednesday sold shares worth $300million (about Rs 1,500 crore) in India's largest private sector lender ICICIBank.

As per the bulk deal transaction data at stock exchanges,about 40 per cent of the sold shares were acquired by global financial servicesgiant Goldman Sachs, but the identity of the other buyers could not beascertained.

Sources said that Goldman Sachs was only managing thetransaction, but did not divulge the name of the entity on whose behalf theseshares were purchased.

The shares of ICICI Bank on Wednesday slipped 1.8 per centto close at Rs 919.85, after hitting an intra-day low of Rs 909.8 and a high ofRs 930.

In various open market transactions, Temasek unit AllamandaInvestments Pte Ltd on Wednesday sold about 1.59 crore shares of ICICI Bank ata price of Rs 924.05 a piece, thus garnering about Rs 1,470 crore from the salethrough bulk deals at the National Stock Exchange.

At the same time, Goldman Sachs Investments (Mauritius) Ltdpurchased about 64.6 lakh shares of ICICI Bank for about Rs 600 crore throughbulk deals at the NSE.

The shares sold by Allamanda account for about 1.4 per centstake in ICICI Bank and little below half of the shares held by this Singaporefirm in the Indian bank.

There have been talks for some time that Temasek was lookingto pare its holding in ICICI Bank.

As on December 31, 2011, Allamanda held about 4 crore sharesof ICICI Bank, accounting for a 3.46 per cent stake.

Besides, the Singaporegovernment also separately held 1.68 per cent stake in the Indian bank at thattime.

Market analysts said that Temasek has been gradually paringits stake in ICICI Bank for the past few years and it had raised its stake inthe Indian lender to about 9 per cent at one point of time, after its firstpurchase of about 5 per cent stake way back in 2003.

They said that the shares could have been sold to bookprofit after a sharp rally of about one-third in the value of ICICI Bank sharessince the beginning of 2012. Prior to this, the ICICI Bank shares had lostabout 40 per cent in 2011.

The other major shareholders of ICICI Bank include DeutscheBank Trust Company (10.12 per cent), LIC (3.46 per cent) and Europacific GrowthFund (2.36 per cent).

Besides, Bajaj Allianz Life, Aberdeen Global, CarmignacGestion, Bajaj Holdings, New Perspective Fund and SBI Life also hold over oneper cent each in ICICI Bank.

Indian banking stocks have witnessed many share transactionsin the recent past, given a sharp surge in their value since the beginning of2012.

Earlier this month, HDFC and Kotak Mahindra Bank have alsoseen their shares changing hands in large open market transactions.