ICICI Bank lists on the New York exchange
Mumbai : ICICI Bank today became the first Indian bank, and the second from Asia, to
list on the New York Stock exchange, when its American Depository Shares (ADS) began
trading. Each ADS represents two underlying shares of ICICI Bank and the price was fixed
at $11, which is a 5.5 per cent premium on the scrip’s five day average on the BSE
and NSE. The ADS opened for trading at $14 representing a premium of over 27 per cent on
the issue price. The $175m issue generated an
exceedingly good demand when it was oversubscribed by 13 times to give a demand size of
$2.2 billion. While almost $1.5 billion of this demand came from institutional investors,
the balance $700m came from retail investors. The bank came out with the issue within two
months of receiving the mandate, the fastest possible time for any ADS issue from India.
The bank is reported to have stated that the funds from
the ADS will be used selectively to pursue growth opportunities through acquisitions and
strategic investments.
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Finance minister says rates
are high
Mumbai: In a statement that was extremely guarded, so as not to upset the money
markets, Mr. Yashwant Sinha, the country’s finance minister stated that cost of funds
to Indian industry was high.
He made this statement at the annual general meeting
of the Indian Banks Association while stating the Indian industry, services and
agriculture cannot be globally competitive if the cost of funds is this high.. Mr. Sinha
said that the banks should reduce their transaction costs by curtailing expenditure while
increasing their business volumes. He also said the private and foreign banks should
seriously do some introspection to reduce the high level of NPAs their balance sheets are
beginning to show.
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