ICICI Bank to offload another 6% in insurance arm in next 3 years

The bank will also be diluting over 12% of its stake in ICICI Prudential Life Insurance through IPO

Set to dilute 12 per cent stake in ICICI Prudential Life Insurance through an IPO, country's biggest private sector lender ICICI Bank has said it will offload another 6 per cent in the insurance arm over the next three years.

ICICI Prudential Life Insurance, ICICI Prudential Life Insurance, the country's first insurer to launch a public offer, has fixed IPO price band at Rs 300-334 per equity share to raise around Rs 6,000 crore.

The NPAs-saddled ICICI Bank, which will be diluting over 12 per cent of its stake in ICICI Prudential Life Insurance through the IPO, is looking to benefit through non-core asset sale, ICICI Bank Managing Director and CEO Chanda Kochhar said, adding the lender will continue to offload stakes in subsidiaries.
 

It will offload another 6 per cent in ICICI Prudential over the next three years.

The insurer's initial share sale, which will open on September 19 and close on September 21, involves an offer of up to 18,13,41,058 equity shares of a face value of Rs 10 each by its shareholders including its promoter ICICI Bank through an offer for sale.

At the lower price band of Rs 300, the company will garner funds little over Rs 5,400 crore from the IPO, while at the upper price band the amount comes to the tune of over Rs 6,000 crore.

In 2015-16, ICICI Pru Life total premium stood at Rs 19,164 crore, the persistency ratio of the company was 82.4 per cent, the highest in the sector, AUM was at Rs 1.09 trillion. The total expenses of the entity is one of the lowest at 14.6 per cent.

The overall market share of the company was 11.3 per cent on retail weighted received premium in FY16.

"We believe that ICICI Bank shareholders have consistently shown faith in our franchise over the past so many years, to strengthen this bond we have made a reservation of up to 10 per cent of the offer size, that is up to 1.81 crore of equity shares for eligible individuals and HUFs, who are public equity share holders of ICICI Bank Ltd, as on Sept 7, 2016," Kochhar told reporters here.

This IPO is a major milestone in the history of the company, for entire financial sector and capital markets in India," she added.

Merrill Lynch and ICICI Securities are global coordinators and book-running lead managers to the issue. Others are CLSA, Deutsche, Edelweiss, HSBC, IIFL, JM Financial, SBI Capital Markets and UBS.