ICIC issue subscribed over 12 times

ICICI Bank's follow-on public offer has attracted the highest-ever investment proposals of over Rs 120,000 crore, twice as much as oil major ONGC's offer three years ago.

The country's second largest bank's offer of over Rs 10,000 crore was subscribed more than 12 times, according to the latest data on the National Stock Exchange website. ONGC's offer of a similar amount, so far the biggest ever public issue, was subscribed more than 6 times.

The qualified institutional buyers' (QIB) portion was subscribed 22 times, high net worth individuals's (HNI's) portion, 6.3 times, and the retail portion was subscribed almost 90 per cent, sources said. ICICI Bank's simultaneous $2.5 billion American Depository Receipts (ADR) issue has received bids worth $8 billion.

Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC), State Bank of India (SBI) and Warburg Pincus were among the institutional investors that put in revised bids at prices ranging from Rs 940 to Rs 950 a share, against initial bids at Rs 900-Rs 920.

This is expected to help the bank price the issue between Rs 940 and Rs 950 a share. The bank is scheduled to announce the price tomorrow.

Market sources said intense negotiations with institutional bidders took place after ICICI Bank's offer initially failed to attract enough bids at prices above Rs 930 a share. ICICI Bank had set Rs 885-Rs 950 a share as the price band for the issue.

The demand at Rs 950 per share was 6.81 times the shares on offer and at Rs 940 per share, 10.27 times.

In the first three days, bids received for ICICI Bank shares in the Rs 940-Rs 950 range would have covered only about half of the shares on offer, as over 90 per cent of the bids were in the range of Rs 900-Rs 930 a share.

Citigroup and Merrill Lynch have put in bids worth $2 billion each through participatory notes and Warburg Pincus submitted bids worth about $1 billion. LIC has bid for shares worth about Rs 8,400 crore and SBI for Rs 5,500 crore.