The Hindu Business Line : ICICI Bank has role in 79% of outbound M&A deals

Brisk business: (From right) Mr Kalpesh Kikani, Global Head-Investment Banking, ICICI Bank Ltd; Ms Chanda Kochhar, Deputy Managing Director and Ms Shilpa Kumar, Senior General Manager-Global Markets Group, at a press conference held in Mumbai on Friday.

Our Bureau

Mumbai, Aug. 17

ICICI Bank said on Friday that it has participated in 79 per cent of the total outbound Indian merger and acquisition deals in terms of value in the first six months of the current year.

Total value of the outbound deals (exceeding more than $100 million) amounted to $16.53 billion. Outbound deals are those done overseas by Indian companies.

The bank has set up a dedicated global investment-banking group to take advantage of the growing M&A opportunities, said Ms Chanda Kochhar, Deputy Managing Director.

The bank has become number one in M&A financing, she said.

Ms Kochhar said value of Indian M&A deals grew at 140 per cent from $8.3 billion in 2004 to $47.4 billion in 2006. “This appears to be just the beginning of the M&A wave in the country,” she said.

She said the bank has presence in 18 countries and the international operations account for 20 per cent of the bank’s consolidated assets. ICICI Bank’s intentional balance sheet amounts to $19 billion.

Ms Kochhar said that the bank’s UK subsidiaries had a 23 per cent return on equity last year.

Responding to question on the sub-prime market crisis, she said the cost of overseas borrowing for Indian companies may go up in some cases. But this is unlikely to affect the fund raising programme of Indian companies.

She said the international crisis might throw open more opportunities for banks like ICICI as some of the affected foreign banks might be sidelined for sometime.