Icici Bank Offers 17.88 Lakh Options

ICICI Bank Ltd had offered an aggregate of 17,88,000 options equivalent to a similar number of shares at an exercise price of Rs 171.90 as part of their first employee stock option plan earlier this calendar year.

Of these 9,94,250 options were granted to 426 employees and 75,000 options were granted to non-whole time directors of the bank.

Although the bank's shareholders had approved ESOPs worth 5 per cent of the capital base, the number of shares offered represented only 0.87 per cent of the same. Currently the capital base of the bank is Rs 196.8 crore with the American Depository Share issue having added an amount of Rs 31.8 crore. However, the options can only be converted to shares after April 1, 2001. These options vest over three years and have a maximum term of 10 years.

Concentration of loan exposures in both the finance and pharmaceuticals sectors have reached 12.80 per cent and 12.08 per cent, respectively.

At the same time lending to sensitive sectors accounts for around 3 per cent of total lending of the bank. The three sectors include capital markets, real estate and commodities having exposures of Rs 48.16 crore, Rs 33.44 crore and Rs 46.57 crore, respectively.

ICICI Bank has also registered a reduction of 35 per cent in foreign exchange income from Rs 34.12 crore in the year 1998-99 to Rs 22.39 crore in 1999-2000. According to bank officials this had been largely caused by the loss of trading opportunities during the year after the introduction of the Euro which replaced a few other active currencies.

However, the bank is gearing up systems to undertake transactions in dollar, pound, euro and yen foreign government securities to enhance the yield on foreign currency denominated liabilities comprising of FCNR(B)and EEFC deposits.

The bank has also established loss limits for the two halves of the year.