Rupee higher
Mumbai: The rupee gained by almost four to five paise due to selling of dollars by some foreign banks. The rupee opened at 40.77/79, touched an intra-day high of 40.66, to finally close at 40.75 against the previous close of 40.79/80.

However, dealers said the RBI was seen buying dollars in the market and the home currency dipped to 40.74 against the greenback.

Dealers said the rupee is likely to trade in the range of 40.60-40.75 this week. In forwards, the six-month premia closed at 2.95 per cent (2.64 per cent) and the 12-month ended at 2.84 per cent (2.69 per cent).

Bonds: Bond prices fell by around 10 paise as traders continued to sell in the market. The total traded volumes on the order matching system were Rs2,780 crore (Rs2,510 crore).

G-secs: The 7.49 per cent-10-year-2017 paper opened at Rs94.11 (8.38 per cent YTM) and closed at Rs94.18 (8.37 per cent YTM), against the previous close of Rs94.27 (8.35 per cent YTM).

The 8.07 per cent-10 year-2017 paper opened at Rs98.55 (8.29 per cent YTM) and closed at Rs99 (8.22 per cent YTM), against the previous close of Rs98.92 (8.23 per cent YTM).

Call rates: Call rates ended unchanged against the previous close of 3 per cent to 3.25 per cent. There were no repo bids in the first liquidity adjustment facility.

In the first one-day reverse repo auction, the RBI received 27 bids for Rs33,190 crore and accepted 27 bids for Rs1,994 crore. In the second one-day reverse-repo auction, the RBI received 27 bids for Rs28,935 crore and accepted 27 bids for Rs1,005 crore.

CBLO: The CBLO market saw 395 trades aggregating Rs32,710.1 crore in the 0.05 per cent-0.75 per cent range.
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ICICI to offload 5.9 pc in new arm to private investors
Mumbai: ICICI Bank will sell a 5.9 per cent stake in its proposed subsidiary (the holding company for its non-banking businesses) to private investors for Rs2,650 crore. This values the subsidiary at Rs44,600 crore on a post-issue basis, said the bank in a letter to the National Stock Exchange.

ICICI Bank said that discussions had been initiated with potential investors and definitive offers have been received for the subscription to equity shares of the proposed subsidiary. The bank did not elaborate on the identity of its potential investors.
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Asian banker excellence awards
New Delhi: HDFC Bank has been judged the Best Retail Bank in India and received the award at the sixth Asian Banker Excellence in Retail Financial Services Awards function held in Shanghai recently.

ICICI Bank won the inaugural Excellence in Remittance Business award for outstanding performance in 2006. About 150 senior bankers from award winning banks in 22 countries across the Asia Pacific, the Gulf Region and Central Asia attended the programme, administered by The Asian Banker.
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Government tells ICICI Bank to repay foreign loans
Mumbai: Govt wants ICICI Bank to repay or prepay foreign currency borrowings guaranteed by it or arrange for alternative guarantees.

ICICI Bank had government-guaranteed loans and bonds worth Rs3,396.67 crore outstanding as on March 31, 2007 comprising around 4.8 per cent of the total borrowings (including subordinated debt) of ICICI Bank at the end of March 2007. The government's letter is dated May 31, 2007.

These loans and bonds were raised or issued by the erstwhile Industrial Credit and Investment Corporation of India (ICICI), a development finance institution, which was not allowed to raise deposits as its primary source of funding.

Prior to ICICI's reverse merger with its subsidiary ICICI Bank, the sources of funds for development finance institutions were retail bonds and rupee borrowings from a wide range of institutional investors.

ICICI had also raised funds through foreign currency borrowings from commercial banks and other multilateral institutions like the Asian Development Bank and the World Bank, which were guaranteed by the Government of India.

ICICI Bank's borrowings increased to Rs61,660 crore ($ 14.3 billion) at the end of March 2007 from Rs45,000 crore ($10.4 billion) at the end of March 2006, primarily due to the increase in foreign currency borrowings, said the SEC filing. The bank's primary source of funding is deposits and, to a smaller extent, borrowings.
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Government to fund SBI stake purchase through extra commercial borrowings
New Delhi: The government's additional borrowing in the first half of 2007-08 would be used to to buy the Reserve Bank's (RBI) stake in State Bank of India (SBI) according to finance minister P Chidambaram.

The government had raised Rs5,000 crore from the money market, outside its scheduled borrowing programme for the first half of the current financial.

Chidambaram in his Budget speech had announced that the government would buy the 59.7 per cent stake of SBI from RBI at an estimated market value of Rs40,000 crore to separate ownership and regulatory functions of the central bank.
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