ICICI Bank shares surge over 2% after 6-day rout; says exposure to Gitanjali group is not the largest

The stock of India’s second-largest private sector lender ICICI Bank recouped losses in the early trades on Thursday surging over 2% after a six-day rout including the two-day of sharp declines after SFIO probe. Shares of ICICI Bank topped the BSE Sensex on Thursday and contributed the most to the index gains, providing the major boost. Since Tuesday this week, the stock of ICICI Bank saw a steep dive after the anti-fraud agency SFIO (Serious Fraud Investigation Office) had issued a summon to ICICI Bank’s MD & CEO to question in connection to the PNB-Nirav Modi banking fraud of Rs 12,700 crore involving fake LOUs. In last two day’s, shares of ICICI Bank slipped about 5.5% on the news.

Being a share price sensitive thing, stock exchanges have sought clarification on the news report of summoning the top executives of the bank. Following which ICICI Bank replied in an exchange filing saying that, this will not have any material impact on the bank or trigger owing to the fact that we mentioned in our earlier letter as well that the ICICI Bank has no exposure to the Nirav Modi group companies; nor has the bank issued any Letter of Undertaking; nor has any buyer’s credit exposure against LOUs with respect to the Nirav Modi group companies as well as the Gitanjali group of companies. ICICI Bank is a part of the working capital lender consortium in the Gitanjali group of companies along with several other banks wherein its exposure is not the largest.

The stock of ICICI Bank recovered partially on Thursday with the share price jumping as much as 2.47% to a day’s high of Rs 293.8 after opening marginally higher at Rs 288 on BSE. A normal trading volume was witnessed in the shares of ICICI Bank, as at 10:22 am, more than 52 lakh shares exchanges hands on both NSE and BSE with about 47 lakh on NSE alone.

ICICI Bank