Amid the boycott of Chinese goods in the country and the anti-China environment, the news is that the People’s Bank of China has bought a stake in ICICI. However, experts say that this does not pose any threat to the national interest.
The People’s Bank has picked up 0.006 per cent stake in ICICI Bank by investing Rs 15 crore in the private sector lender’s Rs 15,000 crore qualified institutional placement (QIP) exercise which concluded last week.
People’s Bank of China was amongst the 357 institutional investors which included domestic mutual funds, insurance companies and global institutions that subscribed to the issue. The prominent investors among them were Government of Singapore, Morgan Investment and Societe Generale.
Currently, among Indian companies, PBoC has stakes in HDFC, Ambuja Cement and Piramal Enterprises. In all the companies, the holding is below the 1% level, which necessitates compulsory disclosure. By March-end, PBoC’s stake in HDFC was slightly above the 1% level as it bought some shares just before the Indian and Chinese military forces’ skirmish in the Galwan valley in Ladakh region.
However, during the April-June quarter, the Chinese central bank sold part of its stake in HDFC and, as of June-end, it had fallen below the 1% level, company officials said.
