ICICI Bank issue off to a sizzling start

India Inc on a fund-raising spree.

ICICI Bank's follow-on public offer (FPO) was off to a sizzling start today and was fully subscribed within 10 minutes on the back of large bids by institutional investors.

At the end of the day, the Rs 8,750 crore issue "" the country's biggest FPO "" was subscribed 2.74 times. It closes on June 22. The Qualified Institutional Buyers' portion was subscribed 5.47 times, sources said.

Investors bid for 270.85 million shares, almost thrice the 98.87 million on offer. Bids for 1,77,516 shares were at the cut-off price of Rs 950, according to the NSE website. ICICI Bank will start selling shares of a similar value in the US later today.

DLF Ltd's Rs 9,187.5 crore initial public offer last week was a resounding success but took two days to attract enough bids and just about managed to sell all shares on offer to individuals.

As in the DLF issue, foreign investors were the major bidders in the ICICI Bank issue.

Qualified Institutional Buyers (QIBs) placed bids for 247 million shares, against the 46.96 million shares on offer for them. At the lower end of the price band, this constitutes bids for Rs 22,744.5 crore.

With the RBI permitting Temasek Holdings and Government of Singapore Investment Corp (GIC) to hold up to 10 per cent stake each in ICICI Bank, these investment agencies are believed to have placed bids for $1 billion.

Private equity major Warburg Pincus is learnt to have placed bids for $750 million.

"Mutual funds are sitting on good cash and this, coupled with interest from foreign institutional investors, has led to oversubscription of the FPO," said Kashyap Jhaveri, analyst with Emkay Share.

Shares of ICICI Bank traded at Rs 944.40 on the 30-stock Sensex of the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), up 2.89 per cent from its previous close.