Warburg bids for half of ICICI shares on offer

Warburg Pincus, a US-based private equity firm, has put in the highest bid worth Rs 5,000 crore for ICICI Bank shares, which is half the size of the follow-on equity offer from the country's largest bank, including the greenshoe option.

ICICI Bank received bids for 31.18 crore shares at the end of the second day, which is 3.15 times the shares on offer, according to figures available at 5 pm with the National Stock Exchange.

Bids from Indian qualified institutional investors and individuals totalled 11.87 crore, which provides the bank room to allot a greater number of shares to domestic investors, so that the total foreign shareholding is kept below 70 per cent. The current foreign shareholding in the bank is close to 72 per cent.

Foreign institutional investors (FIIs) have bid for 19.31 crore shares. The retail shareholders' response was expected to pick up tomorrow with Friday being the closing day.

The bank is likely to announce the pricing on Saturday. The price band for the issue is Rs 885-Rs 950 per share.