HDFC Bank has picked arrangers for $2.4 billion share sale: Sources

India’s HDFC Bank Ltd, the world’s most-expensive lender, has appointed arrangers including Bank of America Corp, Morgan Stanley and Credit Suisse Group AG for a Rs 155 billion ($2.38 billion) planned share sale, people with knowledge of the matter said.

The lender has also appointed JPMorgan Chase & Co, Edelweiss Financial Services Ltd, IIFL Holdings Ltd and JM Financial Ltd for the offering, the people said asking not to be identified because the information is private. The sale process will begin as soon as the lender gets the required regulatory approvals, they said.

HDFC Bank plans to raise the bulk of the funds from international investors through a sale of American depository receipts, with the rest to come from selling stock in India, the people said. The money will be used to boost the lender’s capital buffers and support its growth plans for several years, Paresh Sukthankar, deputy managing director of HDFC Bank said in January.

Representatives for HDFC Bank, Bank of America, Morgan Stanley, IIFL and Edelweiss declined to comment, while Credit Suisse, JPMorgan and JM Financial didn’t immediately respond to emails.

HDFC Bank has a price-to-book multiple of 5.16, making it the most expensive among lenders across the globe with at least $50 billion in market value, data compiled by Bloomberg shows.

The lender’s board approved in December a fund raising of as much as Rs 240 billion through a share sale. Parent company Housing Development Finance Corp will invest about 85 billion rupees, it said at the time.

The Mumbai-based bank, helmed by Chief Executive Officer Aditya Puri, has consistently maintained a low bad-loan ratio by limiting its exposure to heavily-indebted Indian corporates and lending to the country’s growing middle class. The lender, which has the biggest weighting in the benchmark S&P BSE Sensex, has climbed 33 percent in past year.

HDFC Bank had a capital adequacy ratio of 15.5 percent as of Dec. 31 and a gross bad-loan ratio of 1.3 percent, exchange filings show. That compares with 13.9 percent and 10.2 percent, respectively, for India’s banking system as a whole at end of September.