ICICI Bank - trillion rupee market cap

ICICI Bank, which turned into a trillion rupee (one lakh crore) bank following its follow-on issue, is a minnow in terms of its global ranking. The bank, which is the eighth most valuable Indian entity, ranks around 82 in terms of market capitalisation (M-cap) among banks worldwide.

Once all the shares are issued, the increased equity base would give ICICI Bank a M-cap of around $25 billion at current prices. While this is much bigger than State Bank of India, it is one-tenth the size of Citibank — the largest bank globally. China’s largest bank, ICBC, too, is worth nearly 10 times as much as ICICI Bank, with a M-cap of $225 billion.

Indian bankers are quick to point out that balance sheets of Indian banks are healthier than their Chinese counterparts and that Indian banks score over their Chinese rivals in adherence to prudential norms. However, China has five banks in the top-50 list while India has none.

The top Chinese banks in terms of M-cap include ICBC ($225 billion), China Construction Bank ($169 billion), Bank of China ($158 billion), China Merchant Bank ($49 billion) China Citic Bank ($41 billion). In India, there are only eight trillion-rupee companies. ICICI Bank has become the eighth company on the bourses to cross the Rs 1,00,000-crore mark on the back of recent listing of its fresh 5.81 crore equity shares on the bourses. Reliance Industries, Reliance Communications, ONGC, Bharti Airtel, NTPC, Infosys and TCS and have already crossed the milestone.

The bank’s M-cap was at Rs 1,03,003.37 crore, when its shares were trading at Rs 970.75, down 1.13% on the Bombay Stock Exchange in the afternoon trade. The scrip on Monday surged to an intra-day high of Rs 985 on the exchange and about 6.87 lakh shares of ICICI Bank were traded by the afternoon session.

ICICI Bank regained the eighth position in terms of M-cap, which it had lost briefly to realty major DLF after its recent listing on the bourses. DLF has slipped to the ninth rank with a M-cap of about Rs 97,359 crore. Its shares were traded at Rs 576 in the morning session on the BSE.

ICICI Bank had raised over Rs 5,400 crore from its follow-on public offer which had received a robust investor response, getting subscribed 11.50 times.

Although ICICI Bank is just over 15-year old, it has grown following a series of M&A moves, which included a reverse merger with its parent ICICI in 2001. Following the merger, when ICICI Bank became the second-most valuable bank in the country, it had a branch network of just over 400 branches as against the 9,000 plus branches of State Bank of India.