Thursday, March 6, 2008

ICICI Bank Clarifies On News Item

With reference to the news item appearing in a leading web portal titled, ICICI Bank has lost $ 264 Mn till Jan 31 on subprime crisis, ICICI Bank Ltd has clarified as under:

ICICI Bank Ltd has no material direct or indirect exposure to US sub-prime credit. The widening of credit spreads in the international markets have resulted in a negative mark-to-market impact on the credit derivatives and fixed income investment portfolios of the Bank and its overseas banking subsidiaries, while there has been no significant deterioration in actual credit quality of the underlying investments.

ICICI Bank and its overseas banking subsidiaries have an aggregate exposure of USD 2.2 billion in credit derivatives. As of January 31, 2008, the mark-to-market negative on this portfolio due to movement of credit spreads was about US$ 155 million of which USD 88 million had been provided for in the financial statements of the bank and its subsidiaries for the nine months ended December 31, 2007.

In addition, ICICI Bank and its overseas banking subsidiaries have fixed income investment portfolios which have a mark-to-market negative due to widening of credit spreads. As of January 31, 2008 this negative was about US $108 million of which US $ 101 million had been accounted for in the financial statements as of December 31, 2007. This includes mark-to-market on the available for sale portfolio which has been accounted for in the shareholders'' equity.

It may be noted that unrealized gains on ICICI Bank''s other investment portfolio has not been considered in above.

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