ICICI holds $81m bonds of Lehman

Mumbai: India's ICICI Bank said on Tuesday it had 57 million euros ($81 million) of Lehman Brothers senior bonds, and would increase its provision on the debt by about $28 million to cover half of that exposure.

India's second-largest bank said it had already provided about $12 million against the investment in the bonds.

"Considering a 50 per cent recovery estimate, the additional provision required would be about $28 million," joint managing director and chief financial officer Chanda Kochhar said in a statement.

'No other impact'

"There is no other material impact on ICICI Bank or ICICI Bank UK plc on account of exposure to Lehman Brothers," she said.

Shares in ICICI, which fell as much 10 per cent during the day, ended down 5.8 per cent at a two-month closing low of Rs591.35 in a Mumbai market that ended 0.1 per cent lower.

The investments were made by ICICI Bank's UK unit, which had total assets of $8.7 billion as of last June 30, Kochhar said.

ICICI Group and its subsidiaries had consolidated total assets of Rs4.85 trillion ($103 billion) as of June 30, and the exposure was less than 0.1 per cent of total assets, she said.