ICICI may hire banks to sell $1 bn bonds

ICICI Bank, the country’s second-largest lender in terms of market value, hired three banks to help it raise as much as $1 billion from a bond sale, three people familiar with the matter said. Barclays Capital, Citigroup Inc and Deutsche Bank AG will help ICICI sell bonds with maturities between five and 10 years, as soon as this month, said sources on condition of anonymity.

ICICI expects a total loan growth of 15 per cent for the year ending March 31 as companies and consumers borrow more, CEO Chanda Kochhar had said on July 31. The bank’s first-quarter profit rose 17 per cent to Rs 1,030 crore as it cut provisions and increased fee income.

Indian companies raised $4.5 billion from international bonds this year, more than double the amount from 2009, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Deutsche Bank ranks first in arranging sales, followed by HSBC Holdings Plc, Citigroup and Barclays.

Fund raising
ICICI has no “immediate” plans to issue bonds, spokesman Charudatta Deshpande said. The bank “has an ongoing fund raising program and “accesses the debt capital market from time to time,” he said. Citigroup’s spokesman Debasis Ghosh and Deutsche Bank’s spokesman Linus Chettiar declined to comment. Barclays Capital’s Hong Kong-based spokesman Timothy Cuffe also declined to comment. ICICI sold $500 million of five-and-a-half year bonds denominated in dollars in July.