 "ICICI Bank")
By Baiju Kalesh
India’s second-largest private lender ICICI Bank Ltd. is on a hiring spree, anticipating that fundraising by companies will hit a record high this year and next.
The firm plans 15 new hires in its investment banking division this year to beef up its mergers and acquisitions, private equity and fundraising practices, and another 15 in sales, trading and research, said Ajay Saraf, head of investment banking and institutional equities at the lender’s ICICI Securities Ltd. unit.
Positions range from associate to executive vice president level, with most of the senior hires coming from rival banks, Saraf told Bloomberg News in a recent interview in Mumbai.
“Over the next three, four years we’ll see very robust deal activity, both on the private and public side,” Saraf said. “India is becoming a very favorable investment destination — the market where everybody wants to be.”
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The moves will increase ICICI Securities’ headcount to 190.
Others including JM Financial Ltd. and Jefferies Financial Group Inc. are also planning to expand their India operations to capitalise on the boom in deals.
About $27 billion was raised in initial public offerings and follow-on share sales in India last year, exceeding Hong Kong for the first time in at least three decades, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Of that total, $7.5 billion was raised from IPOs, still well off the 2021 record of $18 billion.
Saraf expects more than $18 billion to be raised in IPOs in India in both 2024 and 2025, with at least four listings topping the billion-dollar mark.
“A lot of people are waiting on the sidelines to see whether the market can absorb a large issuance,” Saraf said. “As soon as they get that assurance, there are a whole lot of companies waiting to raise money.”
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Political stability helps, he said, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi projected to prevail in elections this year. Economic growth is also strong — the International Monetary Fund forecasts India’s real gross domestic product will expand more than 6 this year and in 2025.
The benchmark Sensex index has risen every year since 2015, including a 19 gain in 2023.
For M&A, Saraf said investors are increasingly interested in manufacturing and industrial businesses.
“We have seen that sector is the fastest growing,” he said.
