Motorcycle major Bajaj Auto Ltd has increased its stake in private sector bank ICICI Bank through open market purchases. In two block deals on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) and the National Stock Exchange (NSE)— valued at over Rs 630 crore — the auto major has bought 1.27 crore shares of ICICI Bank at a price of around Rs 500 per share.

The auto company bought 68,04,926 shares of ICICI Bank at Rs 499.73 per share as per data available on the BSE while on NSE it bought 58,66,552 shares at Rs 499.43. The ICICI Bank counter clocked trading volumes of 70.71 lakh shares on BSE, while on NSE it clocked volumes of 65.67 lakh shares.

The shareholding of Bajaj Auto in ICICI Bank as on March 31, 2006 was 2,41,32,703 shares amounting to a 2.71% stake in the company and post the acquistion, the shareholding would increase to 3,67,04,181 shares. This works out to just over 4% of the bank’s equity. Bajaj Auto has upped its stake in ICICI Bank as part of its investment portfolio, a company spokesperson said.

The ICICI Bank stock closed with a gain of Rs 13.80 (up 2.84%) at Rs 499.50 on the BSE on Friday. However, the Bajaj Auto stock skid 1.64% with a loss of Rs 45.40 to close at Rs 2,725.

This entry was posted on Saturday, July 8th, 2006 at 12:05 pm and is filed under News and Technology [t]. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.